


Starsong

by Fluxx



Series: Cryo-Crash [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Cyberpunk, Dimension Travel, F/M, M/M, Memory Loss, Multi, To Be Continued
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluxx/pseuds/Fluxx
Summary: A stranger has arrived upon The Continent and seized Cirilla. Yennefer and Geralt track them down, only to be met with a bewildering twist upon a familiar face. His trustworthiness and reliability are suspect at best, but aiding his strange antics may be the only way of getting her back.Track#Fluxx Ficsontumblrfor more fics!
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Cryo-Crash [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/827172
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	1. Polarsern

**Author's Note:**

> > _Höchstgeschwindigkeit_   
>  _Unwahrscheinlich_   
>  _Besonderheit_   
>  _Unsinkbar._
> 
> - _  
> [Eisbrecher - Polarsern](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiUbBgfEboQ&list=PLk6BQLseS5iZEdYygckMfNX1HOuezp489&index=2)  
> _

Ciri’s heart pounded in her ears.

She’d thought, upon finding her Destiny, the running would finally be over. Evidently, as brush and low-hanging branches whipped by and scraped at her clothes, she was wrong. So very, _very_ wrong. Her feet carried her as fast as she could will them, faster than they ever had before, while her mind still reeled at the incomprehensible terror behind her.

A loud, scathing sound rang through the canopies.

Dirt burst into the air on all sides. Trees crashed to the ground like twigs. The world shook, and her feet stumbled, sending her head-over-heels upon the ground. She frantically pushed herself upon, swiping the mud from her eyes. A hot wind burst against her back and she cried out in fear, whirling around to face the monstrosity towering beside her.

Ten, maybe fifteen feet high. Giant, smooth sheets of pristine, polished metal. Tufts of something that looked like fur, but was clearly unnatural, flaring out between the sheets. A pair of viciously-pointed ears to either side of a long, narrow face. A snout slightly bared, lined with jagged, metal teeth. No tongue - instead, the swelling of a faint blue glow. A pair of brilliant, yellow lights serving as captivating, alien eyes.

Ciri withdrew into herself, small and insignificant and weak.

The wet thud of leather boots hitting the ground startled her, whipping her wide-eyed face in its direction. Someone had dropped down beside the metal wolf, one hand gently lain upon its massive leg. They were dressed head-to-toe in black leather, though it didn’t look remotely similar to any material she’d ever seen before, and was decorated with different finishes, stitchings, and linings she didn’t think were possible, much less recognized. Some kind of helm covered their head, bizarre in its sleek nature. It sported a smooth, reflective surface that formed nearly the entire front while the rest of it rounded the head in a single, contiguous form, marred by neither bolts nor corners nor jagged edges nor seams. Perhaps even more confounding than that, another cluster of metal wrapped around their right forearm, and yet another hung from their hip in what looked like a sword’s sheath only much, much smaller, barely as long as even half the person’s thigh.

Suddenly, the person pulled it from its latchings. Ciri jumped, scrambling back across the ground, until a firm boot came down upon the edge of her dress and held her in place. Bewilderment froze her in place as the person brought their bizarre device up to center squarely between her eyes.

Some kind of short, terse whir sounded, and in a blink the reflective surface snapped back, revealing the face within. Not much could be seen, but it was enough to reveal they were a young man, his high cheekbones cushioned securely inside his helm. A thick lock of dark brown hair dipped down, brushing just above a pair of light, cornflower-blue eyes surrounded by dark smudges.

His eyes flickered over her, head-to-toe, and then a smirk crossed his face. “Yeah,” he purred. “This’ll do.”

She gathered a deep breath.

His eyes darkened.

Her mouth dropped open.

He pulled the trigger.

* * *

Geralt leaned into Roach, urging her faster through the singed field of crushed tall grass. Her hooves pounded against the packed earth. So quick was her gallop that Geralt barely had time to notice the large indent in the path ahead - luckily for him, Roach was wizened from years of companionship with the hardy Witcher and easily navigated through it. She leapt across what Geralt now recognized as a giant paw print, though its shape held a strange rigidity to it, her hooves expertly landing upon the thin lines left between the oversized toes. He continued staring at it, deep in contemplative thought, long after they’d passed, only looking up when he felt Roach begin to slow.

His eyes whipped back ahead, instantly landing upon a dark, slumped figure meekly pushing itself up from the ground. “Yen!” he bellowed, vaulting off Roach’s saddle before she’d had time to fully stop. He broke into a run as soon as he landed, closing the remaining few yards in record time and sinking to his knees at Yennefer’s side. “Yen!” he repeated, arms wrapping under her arms and around her torso to help her to a stand. “I’m here. What happened?” Another thought occurred to him. He turned his head, wild eye ranging across the flattened field. “Where’s Cirilla?!”

“I… Wolf?” Yennefer managed between strained breaths. Her hand cradled her head, prompting Geralt to quickly look it over, but as far as he could tell she’d suffered no wounds. She lifted her face to look at him and immediately winced as the sunlight hit her face - Geralt recognized the signs of a headache, and so turned to frantically wave Roach closer. “It attacked us,” she continued as Geralt fished for her a leather-bound flask from the many pouches and satchels hanging from his steed. He popped its cork and handed it to her, and she took a grateful gulp of the cool, refreshing water before continuing, her voice already significantly eased. “It came from the forest. I tried to defend us, but it…” She hesitated, brow furrowed. “I don’t know what it was, but it possesses some kind of magic. A kind I’ve never seen before.”

Assured of her regained stability, Geralt stepped away so she could stand on her own, then turned to survey their surroundings. “It did this?” he asked, gesturing widely.

“Yes,” she confirmed, then stepped towards the forest and pointed at where some trees along the edge were split in half. “I told Ciri to hide. I think she tried to lose it in the forest.” She hesitated, then turned to Geralt, a sinking feeling taking hold in her stomach. “It was huge, Geralt. I don’t even know how to _begin_ describing it, except that it looked like some sort of… wolf, I suppose, if you could call it that.” She blinked, belatedly remembering a crucial detail. “It had a rider!”

Geralt grit his teeth. “Nilfgaard?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t see any kind of banner or insignia.”

Frustration and anger rumbled in his broad chest. He turned and hoisted himself back atop Roach, then leaned down to offer Yennefer his hand. “Let’s hurry. Hopefully, it hasn’t—”

An awful sound tore through the air. They both cringed, covering their ears, but it provided little protection or comfort. The sound swelled and faded, like some foreboding mixture of a storm and a howl, and left behind a shrill ringing in its wake. Cursing through his teeth, Geralt pulled Yennefer up onto Roach’s back. He barely gave her enough time to settle in behind him and wrap her arms around his waist before spurring Roach off once more, pulling her reins to guide her towards the break in the forest. As they raced, he felt her fingertips dig into the folds of his leather bodice - he let one of his hands abandon the reins and rest upon hers, his thumb gently stroking her knuckles.

“We’ll find her, Yen.”

* * *

Hours passed. The trail had gone cold long ago, but still they searched. At one point, they’d come upon burnt starburst in the ground and thought the worst - the absence of any blood or the wreckage Geralt knew would accompany Cirilla’s screaming encouraged to continue on.

They traveled on foot now, carefully picking their way through the forest lest they miss some stray clue or detail. The trail had mostly been laid out by splintered trees and massive sinks into the forest floor, but now such dead giveaways were few and far between. The prints had all but disappeared, and the trees were little more than scraped here-and-there if they looked in the right places. All in all, it spoke to a significantly slowed pace - they hoped that meant the wolf and its rider had seized Cirilla and was transporting her somewhere, rather than…

They dared not think it. To think it would be to make it real. Cirilla was alive. Geralt could still feel the invisible tug in his gut - that made him sure of it.

Then, out of nowhere, a strange sound reached their ears. Geralt abruptly halted, signalling for Yennefer and Roach to do the same, and held a finger to his lips. It was faint and distant, but it was there nonetheless, and if they focused on it…

Yennefer frowned at him and shook her head. “I can’t hear anything. What is it?”

He glanced down at her - to this day, he still occasionally forgot how enhanced his senses were compared to hers. To his credit, it was mostly because he knew how powerful she was in every _other_ regard. “Music,” he gruffly replied, but even as he said it his brow furrowed. “But not like any I’ve ever heard. It’s…” He cringed, then looked up in the direction it was coming from. “It’s not very good.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Yennefer muttered. “Why the hell would they draw attention to themselves by playing music?”

He hesitated, then slowly began a steady approach towards the source of the sounds. “Could be a trap.” He looked back at Roach, then Yennefer. “Follow me. Keep your guard up.”

She nodded, falling into quiet step behind Geralt. Her hands held steady at her sides, fingers curled, preemptively tapping into her magic stores. Unlike Geralt, she had some idea of what to expect - not that it helped her form any clue what to do about it. The closer they drew, the more her mind circled around the bizarre _thing_ that had bounded upon her and Cirilla. It moved like a beast, but looked like a building - or, more accurately, a building-sized suit of armor. A golem of some sort? Perhaps it was the rider, and not the thing itself, who possessed magic? Had they simply animated a pile of metal? But there had been so much of it, and it had all gleamed so brightly in the sun… Where had the rider gathered it from, and how had they polished it to brilliantly? And regardless of the logistics, what chance did her magic or Geralt’s swords stand against its formidable structure? Maybe they could avoid it altogether - go directly for the rider, and hope that in taking them out—

“Hold!” Geralt hissed under his breath.

Yennefer came to a halt behind his raised hand, with Roach drifting to a stop just a few feet behind them. At his motion, she slipped closer to him, the pair inching up against a large tree. Peering around its thick trunk, Geralt directed her eyes at something glinting through the forest, something large and silver. He eyed her and lifted a questioning brow, and she nodded - it was difficult to tell for sure, but the apparent size and color matched the thing that had attacked her and Cirilla.

But as they stood there, maybe twenty yards away, something occurred to her. She frowned, listening to the strange melody playing - and the voice that was speak-singing alongside it. She grew still, mouth slowly falling ajar, brow steadily furrowing. She reached out and nudged Geralt to deliver a pointed look.

At first, Geralt only looked at her in confusion - but soon, he heard it too, and his face slacked with disbelief.

A seething rage brewed in her eyes, her lips coming to purse.

Geralt grit his teeth. “ _No_!”

She scowled at him, then turned and stepped out from behind the tree. She remained careful, of course - after all, the stranger had _attacked_ her. But a ring of confidence granted her a sense of security, and she felt bold enough to make her way closer and closer, dipping behind successive trees as she moved. From each pause, she checked again, trying to get a better look at whatever awaited her, but though the silvery mass grew less obscured its nature became no more clear to her. It and its rider were nestled up against the foot of a mountain, taking temporary refuge in some kind of makeshift camp. As she rounded another tree, she saw that the rider was on foot, prancing about the small clearing.

No… Not “prancing,” but _dancing_. To music that came from… somewhere, she couldn’t quite tell. And with some kind of small object in their hands? And, to her secondhand embarrassment, “singing.”

Very, _very_ badly.

“I could whip it up! Fix you up straight away! Come on in the front door! Leaving at the back door! Whip it! Flip it! Hey!”

She squinted at them, trying her best to endure their voice. They were completely covered from head-to-toe, so she couldn’t see any distinctive features. At the very least, thanks to their clothes' tight nature, she could tell it was a male, which… certainly supported her theory about the voice. But, watching him spin around, bouncing from foot-to-foot and shaking his hips… He didn’t _move_ like him, and sure as hell didn’t _sing_ like him.

“Been workin’ at your service to give it to ya. Didn't mean to make you nervous, you mother fucker!”

She scowled. _Yeah. Definitely not._ But then he turned, and she caught a better glimpse of the object in his hands - a peachy-toned sphere decorated with long, wavy blonde hair. Her eyes widened.

_Ciri?!_

“You got that! You got that! You got that milk money! I got that! I got that! I got that—”

“Jaskier!”

The man whirled, immediately dropping Cirilla’s head and, to Yennefer’s great relief, ceasing his bizarre squalling. (But not, unfortunately, the strange music.) He pulled something from his hip and aimed it at her, but she was too busy staring at the abandoned head in wide-eyed terror. “Freeze!” he yelled, and reflexively she stopped, tearing her eyes away from the head to gawk at him. “Take another step and I’ll fry you, bitch!”

She blinked, taken aback. A part of her was completely confounded by this. A part of her was offended by his particular word choice, and furthermore his audacity in thinking he could… “fry” her, was it? And still _another_ part of her still boiled, more so now that she’d confirmed Cirilla was—

She blinked again, her eyes flickering towards the head. To her bewilderment, there were… stiff little colored strings sticking out from the base of Cirilla’s head? And not a single trace of blood? Her brow furrowed with a creeping dread. “What… did you _do_ to her?!”

“Ah-ah, bitch, _I’m_ asking the questions!” he replied, frantically shuffling over to and scooping up the lifeless head. He rolled it into his palm, then with a skillful gesture tossed it spinning in the air and caught it easily upon his fingertips. Watching her subconsciously flinch, he scoffed. “Oh, please, you flatter me. So, you know what? I’ll tell you this: your little girl is _fine_. This here’s just a decoy.”

Yennefer frowned. “A… A what?” She tried to find his eyes, but of course could not - his helm seemed shut all the way around, shiny enough to reflect the world around it. She was starting to wonder how in the world he managed to see out of it.

His hand shifted around the lunk of metal he aimed at her, and something clicked, drawing her attention back upon it. A soft noise began whirring to life, and inside the thing’s metal tube a soft, blue glow swelled. “My turn,” he asserted, his tone suddenly pitching darker. “Who are you? How do you know that name?”

The question was… oddly relieving, if a bit perplexing. “So you _are_ Jaskier?” she countered. “Don’t you recognize me?” The only response he offered was a slight rise of the glowing barrel towards her face. “It’s _Yennefer_ , you idiot!” she frustratedly grumbled, then whipped a gesture towards his helm. “Take that bloody thing off and maybe you’ll _see_ better!”

“Hah!” he laughed. “Yeah, right. I don’t think so, lady - not while that fuckin’ sun’s still out.” As if he needed to clarify, he briefly moved the thing in his hand to point skyward, then trained it back upon her face. His head shifted, apparently looking her over head-to-toe, and his manner grew hesitant. “That was… ‘Yennefer,’ you said?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes!” When he said nothing more, she chanced another step forward. “Don’t you remember me?”

He jerked backwards, righting aim - she stopped, but he nonetheless bit back. “Hey, hey! I said not another step!”

“Oh, would you put that stupid thing _down_ already?!” she snarled. “What even _is_ it?”

Oddly enough, her remarks made him groan. “Seriously? This world doesn’t even have guns?”

Yennefer frowned. “‘This world’?”

“Stand down!”

Geralt’s sudden presence along the clearing’s edge drew the man’s alarm. Quick as a whip, Yennefer took advantage of his distraction, lurching forward and yanking the chunk of metal out of his hand.

“ _Hey_!” he hissed, whirling back towards her.

She fumbled with it, then held it out in front of her, pressed between her palms.

His shoulders visibly slumped. With a disappointed gesture towards his “gun,” as he’d called it, he groaned, “Yeah, sorry, sweetheart, but that’s not how that works.”

“I said _stand down_!” Geralt angrily repeated. His stance was low as he approached, one arm held before him while his other held his sword back, ready to strike when needed. He frowned, yellow eyes sizing up the lithe, leather-bound figure. He certainly shared Jaskier’s figure, but… it just didn’t make any _sense_. He eyed Yennefer, who offered a small, stiff nod. He returned his glare to the masked man. “Remove your helm and identify yourself!”

“Or _what_?” the stranger scoffed, twiddling his fingers at Geralt’s sword. “You’re gonna poke me with your antiquated metal stick?”

Rage flared across Geralt’s face. “ _Fine_ ,” he snarled, then lunged.

Yennefer caught the man’s subtle shift in poise just before impact. “Wait!” she yelled, trying to warn Geralt.

It came too late. As Geralt came in range, the man suddenly leaped straight upwards, folding his legs just in time for the soles of his boots to clear the sweep of Geralt’s sword. What was more, his torso had already begun to twist, and as the rest of his body followed through his foot extended and whipped around to collide directly against the side of Geralt’s face. Geralt stumbled aside, more shocked than hurt, and the man snickered at him. “Did you really think that’d work?! I’ve been dodging _way_ too many Enforcers to get bested by some washed-up old man!”

Geralt regathered himself easily enough, standing tall and turning a snarl upon the stranger. His vision went red.

Instantly, the stranger’s disposition changed, falling into a defensive stance and frantically waving his hands before him. “N-No, no, wait! I didn’t mean—”

With a furious yell, Geralt threw his hand forward, and with it a powerful burst shot towards the man. It caught him like a leaf before a gale, flinging him off his footing to slam back against the side of his giant, mechanized wolf. A wet-sounding gag fell out of him upon impact, somewhat muffled by his odd helm, and he slumped to the ground.

Before he had time to recover, Yennefer dropped his “gun” and darted towards him. His head still idly rolled in its disoriented daze as her fingers seized the smooth sides of his helm. With a firm tug and met with hardly any resistance, she hoisted it off his head and tossed it aside.

Panic spurred him - she and Geralt had only a fleeting moment to glimpse his horrified face before he suddenly threw himself upon his hands and knees and scrambled frantically towards a hollowed-out portion of his giant wolf. While Yennefer puzzled over it all, Geralt reached down and grabbed his foot to roughly yank him back out.

“No!” he screamed, managing to latch his arms around the threshold’s edge. He fought violently against Geralt, kicking at his hand with his free foot - Geralt simply grabbed it as well. His screaming reached a new pitch. In apparent desperation, his arms shifted, still anchoring him to his wolf but now shielding his head from—

Realization struck. Yennefer smacked Geralt’s shoulder and hissed, “ _Stop_ it! Can’t you see he’s terrified?!”

He stopped, but mostly just to snarl indignantly at her. “He—”

“ _Look_!” she interrupted, snapping her hand towards the stranger.

Geralt looked - then stilled. A deep chill froze his heart, and the black faded from his eyes. His chest still heaved from equal parts adrenaline and dissipating rage, but he found himself breathless as he stared down at none other than Jaskier, curled up against the far wall of his shelter and staring at him in horror.

Or, at least, it _looked_ like Jaskier, but… not quite. Certainly, the face was nearly identical, different only in that his cornflower-blue eyes were circled with black smudging and how much more grime dirtied his face. The bard he’d known wouldn’t _stand_ that much filth, definitely not for any extended period of time. The most jarring difference, however, was the hair - or, rather, partial lack thereof. The man before him had shaved the sides of his head nearly down to the scalp - it had grown out just a little bit since his last cut - leaving only a thick trail of it down the center, maybe three inches wide. It was shorter in the front than the back, with the back barely reaching between his shoulder blades and the front just long enough to flop forward and brush across his brow. Beneath one side’s returning follicles, a permanent-looking design stretched along his skin: a series of three straight, evenly-spaced lines that disappeared beneath the hair along the nape of his neck.

The strange twist on a face he’d come to know so well proved disorienting to say the least. Geralt blinked himself out of it, wet his lips, then sheathed his sword and took a step forward. “Jask—”

“Stop!” Jaskier cried, throwing a hand out to stop his approach. His wide eyes ranged between Geralt and Yennefer, his helm upon the forest floor, and the rays of light filtering through the dense canopy. Something occurred to him, and he yanked his hand back to tap his fingertips all up and down the side of his face. Only after he’d beheld them and found them clean did he finally sigh, a mild relief relaxing him, but now Geralt and Yennefer occupied his full attention, and he seemed thoroughly uncertain just what to do about either of them. “Who are you?” he finally asked, desperate. “How do you know my name? And…” He hesitated, eyes flickering over Yennefer, then snapping back to Geralt. He withdrew further into his wolf. “And why do I… _recognize_ you… ?”

“Step into the light, Jaskier,” Yennefer gently encouraged, offering him her hand. “It’s not going to hurt you.”

“You don’t know that,” he quickly insisted. Nonetheless, he eyed her hand, then the two of them, then slowly, gingerly pulled himself to a stand. Pain shot through him as he did, and he winced - they both reflexively inched forward to help, but his hand snatched something from a nearby compartment and aimed it at them both. Another “gun,” it looked like. “Don’t come any closer!”

“We don’t want to hurt you, Jaskier,” Geralt grumbled - nonetheless, he defensively raised his hands.

“Piss way of showin’ it,” he scoffed in return. “I’m just supposed to _believe_ you, am I? A fucking _Enforcer_?!”

“What the hell is an ‘Enforcer’?” Yennefer cut in before their argument could get any worse.

He seemed genuinely surprised by the question. “Well, _he_ is!” he indignantly replied, but then frowned and started looking Geralt over. “Aren’t you?”

“No!” Geralt snapped.

“You said something about ‘this world’ earlier,” Yennefer continued. “So you’re… You’re from a different one?” Even as she said it, she didn’t believe herself - after all, stylistic inclinations aside, he seemed the picture-perfect copy of Geralt’s old bard companion. “Is an ‘Enforcer’ something from your world? I don’t think we have those, here.”

It certainly made enough sense, but still he seemed confused by it. “But… He looks like one,” he murmured, gesturing at Geralt with his “gun.” He tilted his head and frowned. “Almost. I think? The uniform’s all wrong.”

“Look,” Geralt sighed, after having taken significant steps to finish calming himself, “we’re not here to bother you. We’re just here for Cirilla.”

Jaskier winced at the sound of the name. “‘Cirilla’…?”

“The girl you snatched,” Yennefer glowered.

“Hmm,” Jaskier murmured, a portion of his mind obviously drifting to another place. Ultimately he shook it off, then shrugged. “Sorry, love. I’m still using her.”

“You’re _what_?!” Geralt raged, bounding towards him.

“H-Hey, hey!” Jaskier panicked, moving his “gun” towards him - but Geralt just grabbed it and yanked it effortlessly from his gloved hand.

“I don’t have time for this!” he bellowed, ignoring the way Jaskier rubbed at his fingers. It had been difficult to see his friend’s face twisted with such fear and pain, particularly when he was the cause of it, but the longer this person stood between him and Cirilla the less it affected him. “Where is she?!”

“Would you relax?!” Jaskier protested, stumbling back towards a different portion of the area. He swallowed, eyes quickly scaling Geralt head-to-toe. “Holy hell, you’re big.”

Geralt glared at him, then turned about in slow survey of his new surroundings. They stood in a small, compact room covered floor-to-ceiling with compartments of all sizes. Strange arrangements of things were fashioned into certain parts of the room: one looked like a person was supposed to stand in or near it, but the rest was too bizarre for him to even guess at their function or purpose.

Jaskier cursed through his teeth, then finally abandoned the wall he’d clung to and pushed his way passed Geralt to the opposite side of the room. “Alright, fine!” he grumbled, slamming a fist upon a panel fashioned into the wall. Instantly, an airy whir resounded through the room - Geralt and Yennefer braced themselves, unsure just what to expect. Lines of soft blue light swept through the room, moving towards a rectangular groove cut into the ceiling. Chilled air burst down all along the groove, fogging as it hit the room’s warmth. Suddenly, the panel shuddered, and a moment later it began its long, steady descent, slowly extending all the way down to at last hit the floor.

Jaskier waved his arms about, coughing and shooing off the fog. As it cleared, a large, rectangular crate was revealed upon the panel, centered between the two side bars still connecting it to the ceiling. He stepped towards one side of the crate, crouched low, and swiped two fingers along a small, black bar. When he did, a section of the crate’s white surface snapped open - and Geralt’s eyes shot wide.

“Cirilla!” he bellowed, darting towards the crate. A heavy hand collapsed upon Jaskier’s shoulder and threw him easily aside, allowing the Witcher to claim his spot.

Jaskier reeled backwards, but managed to keep his footing. “Hey! _You’re welcome_ , by the way!”

Yennefer shot him a vicious glare as she stormed over to join Geralt. “You _can’t_ be serious?” Taking a spot beside Geralt, she peered through the window, searching for every last detail.

As far as either of them could tell, Cirilla looked fine. Peaceful, even. Her eyes were closed, her face expressionless. She floated in some kind of thick, viscous substance, hovering about halfway off the base of the crate. She didn’t seem injured - but nor did she appear to be breathing.

That was enough to set Geralt off again. He stood and whirled upon the bizarre Jaskier. “Open the crate!”

Jaskier half-laughed. “Uh… _No_?”

“I’m not playing your games, Jaskier!” he warned. “Release her, or I’ll—”

“Oh, let me guess!” Jaskier giddily replied in severely overacted excitement. “Hmm, let’s see. You’ll kill me?” Geralt’s resulting snarl put a smug look on his face. “Yeah, see, you don’t know how to open that crate. Kill me, and you’ll _never_ get her out.”

“I could torture it out of you,” Yennefer sinisterly suggested, smoothly standing back up into a fiersome poise. She held her hand to her side and allowed raw power to lick her fingertips, backing up her threat.

Jaskier rolled his eyes. “So then I’ll kill myself?” he muttered, as if that were an obvious and perfectly appropriate reaction. Noticing their confused expressions, he sighed, then gestured wide to indicate his surroundings. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m both very lost and very broke. That girl,” he replied with a point towards the crate, hesitated, then redirected towards the head still abandoned outside, “or, rather, that girl’s _decoy_ is my current best hope of raising enough funding to exist in this hellscape long enough to figure out a way back home.”

“That’s it?” Geralt scoffed. “If that’s all you want, just give her back and stay with us.” The offer made enough sense, but caught Yennefer off guard - the two of them met each other’s eyes, Geralt knowing in that one look that Yennefer had divined what _really_ compelled him to invite him in. His brow narrowed, and he doubled down on it. “We’ll help you figure out a way home.”

“That’s a kind offer,” Jaskier insincerely replied, but then his eyes scaled Geralt again and the Witcher suddenly felt somehow exposed. “ _Very_ kind. But that’s impossible. Neither of you know the first thing about crystal, cryodolls, or amalgamorphs.”

“I know crystals,” Yennefer offered with a raised hand. “I’m a mage,” she explained. “They’re a fairly common ingredient. What are the other two?”

Jaskier responded with a half-smile. “I’m betting it’s not the same kind of ‘crystal,’ beautiful. As for the others…” He pointed up to the ceiling. “This is a cryodoll. The whole thing. I’m his cryomancer, which is a fancy way of saying I control him - through this.” He lifted his right arm, showing off the metal brace bound around it.

“And ‘amalgamorphs’?” Geralt pressed, one brow raised.

Jaskier grinned. “A word I made up to make a point.”

Geralt rolled his eyes. “Point taken.” He glanced over his shoulder to where Cirilla’s head was still visible through the crate’s window. “Well, we’re not leaving until you give her back.”

“Well, I’m not going until you leave,” Jaskier indignantly countered. “One of us wins out on that one.” He leaned forward and placed a hand by his mouth, voice shifting to a sarcastic whisper. “It’s me, by the way. Whether I starve, kill myself, or you kill me, I at least won’t have to deal with any of this anymore, and you’ll be permanently severed from your daughter.”

“She’s not—” Geralt began, but just as quickly dropped it, closing his eyes and struggling to gather his patience. “I swear, you’re just as insufferable as him.”

Jaskier cheerily fluttered his eyes. “Am I?”

“Why don’t we go with you?” Yennefer suddenly suggested. Jaskier of course couldn’t see it, but Geralt could tell from her tone and disposition she was fast tiring of all this. Unlike Geralt, she cared less for pretense and more for _results_ , so if she saw a path of minimal resistance she was perfectly content pursuing it. “We won’t hurt you or anything - by your own indication, there’d be no point to it. But it’ll allow us to stay with Cirilla and make sure you don’t do anything stupid with her.” She turned to Geralt, knowing he’d need a good bit of coaxing on the matter too. “If we help him do whatever needs doing - presuming of course it doesn’t harm Cirilla - then we get her back sooner. That’s ultimately the goal, right?”

Geralt frowned, then turned to look back at the crate. “We could just _break_ it open.”

“And risk hurting your wee lass?” Jaskier chortled. “Look, you can try, but I promise you it’s no easy feat. If I were you? I’d go with your honey on this one. If safety’s your aim, she probably safer in there than anywhere else anyway!”

“I have a name, you know,” Yennefer flatly muttered.

“I know,” he assured her. “Yen.” He frowned. “ _Yennefer_. Yennefer. Sorry.” Putting on a smile, he turned to Geralt. “And how about _you_ , Mr. Tall, Brooding, and Handsome?”

Geralt glared at him, made his way back to the outside world in search of his sword and steed, muttering along the way. “It’s Geralt.”

At that, Jaskier laughed. “No, it’s not,” he chided, moving casually towards Yennefer - she’d picked up his helm, and he was _more_ than happy to reclaim it. The minute he’d eased it back upon his head, he at last finally relaxed and trotted back out into the forest. Spinning on his heel, he threw his arms wide to present to them his cryodoll, and by his tone alone they knew beneath his helm he was grinning ear-to-ear like an idiot. “ _He_ 's ‘Geralt’!”


	2. Quasar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > _Fated One hold me down  
>  Know my blur and my keep  
> Do I know you?  
> What keeps us free If you believe?  
> Please allow me to say hello to you_
> 
> - _  
> [Smashing Pumpkins - Quasar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QnTGYK_OoA&list=PLk6BQLseS5iZEdYygckMfNX1HOuezp489&index=4)  
> _

Geralt and Yennefer tilted their heads back, studying the giant, mechanical beast - the “cryodoll,” this Jaskier had called it - for the first time. At the moment, it laid still, in perfect mimicry of a sleeping wolf: its ears flattened back against its head, its head nestled along its long forelegs, its tail wrapped around its folded hind legs. It lacked eyelids though, so the gleaming, glass orbs forming its eyes remained fully visible, merely lacking the faint glow that Yennefer recalled accompanied its active state. Its coat, meanwhile, was a poor approximation of a pelt. A spread of thin, flexible fibers that felt like a sturdier version of leather imitated fur in large swaths across its form, but large, sleek panels burst out and back in various places, giving it a gruffly armored look.

It was, in short, a lot to take in. Nothing about it was anything like anything they’d ever seen in all their combined travels across the continent - and, as people who rather enjoyed being left well enough the fuck alone, that fact alone was plenty reason enough to put them on edge. But still, something else was puzzling Geralt, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Idly, his hand moved to the medallion hanging from his neck, and he muttered under his breath, “It’s a bit… on the nose, isn’t it?”

A single, sharp laugh burst out of Yennefer. “All of this, and _that’s_ what worries you?”

“Listen, mate,” Jaskier huffed as he strolled passed, voice subtly distorted by his helmet and arms loaded with the metal containers he’d used to pack up his belongings. “You got a problem with Geralt? You can walk.”

Geralt shot him an incredulous look, throwing a hand behind him to the edge of the clearing. “I’ll just ride my horse!”

Jaskier nearly dropped his belongings on his toes - not that he appeared to notice, while Yennefer flinched in reflexive sympathy for his neglected extremities. “Your what?” he asked, scanning the forest’s edge in eager curiosity.

It hadn’t been five minutes, and already Geralt was starting to regret agreeing to this. Yennefer gave him a sympathetic look, encouraging him to remain focused on the goal: getting Cirilla back. He took a steadying breath, then turned to the trees, two fingers stuck between his lips. His sharp whistle startled Jaskier, a fact he allowed himself a small victory over, but when Roach emerged through the rustling brush, hooves crunching the fallen leaves coating the forest’s floor, all alarm was thrown out the window and replaced with pure amazement.

“Yoooooo,” Jaskier gasped in total awe, absent-mindedly kicking his crates into a secure lock against the wall before slowly inching out from his wolf’s exposed cavity. As he neared, Geralt grew protective, frowning and stepping after him, but so far Jaskier’s whole body spoke only of rampant curiosity, his helmet accentuating the turns of his head as he tried to get a fuller view of the horse. “This is amazing! It’s so… smooth! And _soft_? And—”

He’d reached out to touch Roach’s mane. Roach offered a firm snort, her neck twitching to dissuade contact.

“ _ALIVE_!” Jaskier yelped, immediately jumping back and ducking behind Geralt. “It’s _alive_?!”

Geralt rolled his eyes and set about tending to Roach while Yennefer dealt with Jaskier. “Of course she’s alive?” the mage puzzled. “She’s a _horse_. You… _do_ have horses in your world, don’t you?”

“Uhh…” Jaskier murmured, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “S… Sort of… ?” he meekly offered with a shrug. “We used to. Maybe? Gotta be honest, this isn’t really my… erm… area of expertise?”

Geralt looked away from the mindless task of adjusting the packs hanging from Roach’s saddle, a task he’d committed to memory _decades_ ago, to raise a brow at him. “But you have wolves?”

Neither of them could, of course, see Jaskier’s face. His silence alone, and the subtle aversion of his head was enough to know exactly what was running through his head.

“ _Wolves_!!!” Geralt yelled, throwing his hand at the metallic beast still “slumbering” behind them.

“Oh, Geralt?” Jaskier asked, twisting around and looking as if Geralt could possibly be referring to anything else. “He’s a swan, isn’t he?” When neither of them said anything, too busy blankly staring at him, he turned back to them and continued, “You know… White, sleek, graceful?”

Geralt rolled his eyes, then marched passed them with a low grumble. “Come on, Roach. This’ll be over soon enough.”

Jaskier’s head whipped around to Yennefer. “It _talks_?!”

Yennefer looked like she feared catching some kind of disease from him. In the end, she offered only the curt correction of, “ _She_ ,” then turned to follow after Geralt and Roach. In the safety of mental projection, she sighed to Geralt, _Sorry._

Geralt narrowed his eyes at her, then looked passed to where Jaskier was jogging up after them. “I think it’s time you told us _exactly_ what your intentions are with Cirilla.”

“Oh, you know, the usual,” Jaskier casually replied, tilting his face skyward and counting off on his fingers. “We’ll start with dinner - somewhere nice, with a view - then maybe catch a movie downtown. I know, I know, back by eight! I won’t disappoint you, Sir!” When he was done, he looked back down to find them staring at him again, then deflated. “Seriously?! Okay, what of all that doesn’t this world have?”

They exchanged a look, double-checking that each of them was as clueless as the other as well as daring each other to suffer answering him. Yennefer ultimately forced it on Geralt, moving on towards the front of Jaskier’s machine without so much as another glance in Jaskier’s direction. Geralt groaned, then folded his arms before facing him. “None of it, but you speak similarly enough to our Jaskier that I know you were playing a fool. Cut the shit and answer the question.”

In a move that brought Geralt’s rage bubbling towards its peak, a loud scoff burst out of Jaskier, and instead of anything to do with Cirilla he said, “Um, excuse me, there’s only _one_ ‘Jaskier,’ and I’m _hardly_ ‘yours’!” He leaned closer, and to Geralt’s horror had the audacity to reach out and draw his gloved fingertips gently along the ridge of his jawbone. “Though, I won’t say ‘no’ if you want to give it a try… ?”

Red consumed Geralt’s face. Embarrassment pursed his lips shut tight, and fury dug his fingers into his arms as he struggled to keep himself from beheading the otherworldly man right then and there.

Yennefer to the rescue. “What’s wrong with it?” her voice called from around front.

Even through his helmet, Geralt heard Jaskier’s snicker as he gave Geralt’s cheek a light pat before making his way around to Yennefer. “What do you mean, ‘wrong’ with it? I just ran his diagnostics this morning and nothing failed.” He looked up to see Yennefer’s blank look, sighed, then wove his hand and turned to examine his cryodoll. “Nevermind.”

Yennefer gestured towards it. “It’s nothing like when you _attacked_ us,” she replied, sure to underscore her lingering contempt for the encounter.

“Oh,” Jaskier chuckled, then reached into one of the many pouches spotting his attire as he stepped passed her and up to the cryodoll’s giant snout. “That’s because he’s still shut down. But, sun’s setting, and I’m all packed up, so since we’ll be hitting the road soon…” He passed whatever he’d pulled from his pouch into his left hand, then reached up and out with his right, his fingertips slipping under the fur-like fibers in search of something unseen. When he finally found it, he splayed his fingers, spreading the surrounding fibers to reveal a small, elongated slot in the side of the wolf’s snout. A slick motion of his right hand slid its secreted prize out into full view: a long, gleaming crystal thrumming with its own blue, shimmering light.

The very moment Jaskier placed the crystal into the slot, bright lights swelled to life in each of its vacant eyes. Geralt and Yennefer both instinctively backed up, Geralt with his steel sword raised and Yennefer with magic crackling at her fingertips. An airy, whirring sound accompanied the sudden closing of the wolf’s side, locking them out of its inner cavity, and its metal-sprinkled coat began to shift all over its body. They watched in equal parts fascination and fear as its paws curled into the ground, its limbs flexed. In a sudden, fluid motion, it burst up upon all fours and threw its head back. Its snout released a terrible, shrieking howl to the encroaching night, startling birds from their perches all around them - and, no doubt, drawing much unwanted attention from whatever _else_ lurked in the woods.

Geralt snarled, head whipping over his shoulder and focusing his senses for a quick survey. “Damn it, Jaskier!” he hissed, the past sending a haunting echo through his curse. As he’d expected, the crackling, gurgling sounds of ghouls rustled a short distance away, drawn to the presence of what they’d hoped would be a fresh meal.

Jaskier, completely unaware of the problem, had taken to reaching out and lovingly stroking his wolf’s foreleg. “Oh, come on, Fake Geralt. He’s just saying ‘hello!’ Won’t you say ‘hi’ back?”

Yennefer rolled her eyes, turning around to face the direction indicated by Geralt’s battle stance. “How many?”

“Five,” he growled, trading his steel sword for his silver one. He stole a quick glance at Jaskier and his wolf. “You said that thing can fight?”

“I said it had some kind of weird magic,” she huffed in reply. Her attentions piqued to one cluster of trees, detecting the first of the ghouls fast approaching them. “No idea what it does apart from disable and disorient.”

“And ‘bark.’” He moved forward a few paces and threw a gesture towards the ground. “Yrden!”

“Who?” Jaskier replied, glancing between him and Yennefer. But as he did, his eyes caught the small pillars of purple light stretching up from the ground, and he couldn’t help but eagerly wander towards them. “Yo, did you do this?! That’s awe—”

“Get _back_!” Yennefer yelled, just as the first ghoul broke free of the surrounding brush.

Even before Jaskier had time to yell his horrified cursing, Geralt was upon the invader, his silver blade releasing a hot whistle as it seared the air and sank through mottled flesh. Each slash tore a guttural cry from the ghoul’s throat, and sent its hands wildly clawing at the witcher.

“What the fuck? _What the fuck?!_ ” Jaskier was panicking, backing up against his wolf’s leg.

Yennefer irritatedly stepped between him and a ghoul that had broken around Geralt. _Of COURSE it’s useless the minute we need it!_ she silently fumed, throwing out her hand. Bolts of electricity arched forth from her fingertips, striking the creature off its feets and hurtling against a far tree. Another thrashed its way through a nearby bush - a sweep of her hand flung it across the clearing like a ragdoll.

Geralt meanwhile continued hacking away at the trio of ghouls he managed to keep focused on him. An upward thrust drew his blade through the first ghoul’s middle, rending it into two halves that gushed with rancid blood as they collapsed upon the floor. Another managed to squirm its way past him, hurtling its shambling body towards Jaskier. While Jaskier lifted his arms defensively before him, Geralt’s Yrden luckily locked the ghoul in place, exposing it to a final downward pierce of Geralt’s sword. Lifting back to a stand, Geralt snarled at him. “Don’t just _stand_ there, Jaskier! _Do_ —”

In the blink of an eye, Jaskier displaced himself two feet to his right. One of the arms Geralt’d thought had been raised in defense was now straightened out before him, fist aimed at something directly behind Geralt. Geralt whirled, just in time to see two rows of jagged, sharp teeth burst with blood as they crushed the fifth and final ghoul mere inches from Geralt’s face. Before Geralt had finished processing the sight, the gleaming snout yanked its prize off the ground, tossing it effortlessly in the air before catching it in another vicious clamp of its jowls. Thankfully, Geralt and Yennefer had just enough foresight to quickly join Jaskier beneath his wolf’s underbelly, allowing the blood and scraps of flesh to rain harmlessly down around them.

They both glared at him.

“What?” he innocently protested. “I’m helping!”

“I’ve neither the time nor patience for this!” Geralt growled, jabbing a thick finger to Jaskier’s chest. “You made it clear we need you alive in order to get Cirilla back. You’re a _damn fool_ if you think I’m going to let your ignorant recklessness put you, us, _her_ in danger! Whatever your plans for her, it’s going to require _subtlety_ , lest you feel like drawing the attention of every fucking beast, demon, and army for miles around!”

“Subtlety?” Jaskier scoffed. “Have you seen Geralt?” He turned indignantly to Yennefer. “He _has_ seen him, right? The giant, shining wolf?”

“You’re not weaseling your way around this one, Jaskier,” Yennefer scolded him. “We can’t go around picking unnecessary fights!”

“Why not?” he challenged, gesturing between her and Geralt. “I mean, you two were _amazing_! Those things were _nothing_ compared to… To, uh…” He waved at them each in turn. “To whatever it is you two were doing.”

Geralt sighed. The genuine, unrestrained admiration softened his tone, and for a moment he reminisced for the early days of his bard’s companionship. “There’s a limit to it,” he explained, then keenly pointed to the pouch Jaskier had pulled his crystal from. “And you too, I’m guessing.”

Jaskier cringed. “I… Erm… Okay, yes, you have a valid point.” His shoulders slumped, his head craning back to gaze around to where the wolf was still working the ghoul’s carcass between its teeth. “It’s just… It was so much _fun_ , you know?”

“No!” Yennefer glowered next. “This isn’t ‘fun’ for us, Jaskier. These are real life horrors that torment our world every day.” In a moment of inspiration, she looked up and gestured towards the sky. “It’s our ‘sun.’”

He quieted so severely, she wondered if the metaphor had been a bit _too_ accurate - and what that must mean about the world he hailed from. “Oh,” he replied. An awkward silence fell between them, during which Jaskier sheepishly withdrew. Ultimately though, he fell just short of an apology, suddenly turning away and stepping out from under his wolf. “Well, better get moving, then.” He wove to the forest floor, now sporting a fresh coat of crimson. “Imagine all sorts of lovelies will catch a whiff of that.”

Geralt and Yennefer exchanged yet another look, knowing full well it was far from the last along what was sure to be an aggravating journey. “Where are we even going?” Yennefer demanded, leading the way out from under the wolf and after Jaskier.

Jaskier had already climbed himself halfway up one of his wolf’s forelegs, where he perched so he could offer Yennefer his hand. “Not too sure, to be honest. South, I think? South-ish?”

Yennefer let him give her a boost, just enough that she could grab a sturdy hold of the cryodoll’s “pelt” and haul herself the rest of the way up and over its back. Geralt was next, but he stubbornly refused with a sharp glare and instead moved to Roach’s side. “You don’t know?” he grumped. “What was your plan?!”

Meanwhile, Yennefer was speaking in his head. _South?! This idiot’s going the opposite direction we need to take her!_

Geralt hoisted himself atop Roach’s saddle and met Yennefer’s troubled gaze. He could offer a sympathetic half-smile. _What choice do we have?_

Jaskier, of course, caught not a hint of the entire exchange. “You sure about that?” he asked, pointing down at Roach as he settled into place in front of Yennefer. “She’s a lovely creature, no doubt. But I’m pretty sure Geralt’ll leave her in his dust.”

“I’m pretty sure he _won’t_ ,” Yennefer purred in his ear, sending shivers down his spine, “because if he _does_ I’ll burn holes in your suit so the sun can have its way with you.”

“You wouldn’t!” Jaskier gasped, twisting around to gape at her - unseen beneath his helmet, of course.

“She _would_ ,” Geralt chuckled, thoroughly pleased that Yennefer had found a way to control the little pest. “So, do be mindful of your pace, hmm?”

Jaskier harrumphed, but offered no further protest, leaning down and giving his wolf’s side a loving pat. Already, the wolf was turning in place, responding to some unseen command, but Jaskier spoke nonetheless, whether for the theatrics or because he honestly didn’t realize it was unnecessary - or, perhaps, to give his company the slightest hint as to his aims. “You heard the man. Let’s go collect that bounty!”

* * *

Hours passed. The sun had long since disappeared beneath the horizon. Stars twinkled all across the sky. A cool breeze rustled the tall wheatgrass for miles in every direction.

Nonetheless, _still_ Jaskier blabbered on into the night.

“No joke?” he laughed. “You _really_ have your own ‘Jaskier’?”

“For the millionth time, _yes_ ,” Yennefer groaned, her head falling back in exhaustion. “Though I’m having trouble figuring which of you is most annoying.”

“I hope it’s me,” Jaskier grinned.

Down below, Roach trotted along at the wolf’s feet, her cargo growing more irritable with every passing minute. “Why aren’t we stopping? We need to make camp for the night!”

“No way!” Jaskier cried, sitting up straight and throwing his hands wide. “Just _look_ at this beautiful, glorious night! We have to make the most of it before the sun comes up!”

“For the last time,” Geralt yelled, “the sun _won’t_ kill you!”

“Maybe not,” Jaskier conceded, “but I’ve lived my whole life hiding from it. I’ve got none of the natural resistances you lot’ve built up from years of living in it.”

“Well would you at least remove that stupid helm?” Yennefer grumbled. “It’s hard enough trying to hear you when we’re both so damn tired.”

“Oh!” Jaskier chirped, hands quickly flitting around under his chin. “Sorry. Not used to having company.”

Yennefer watched him pop the odd gear up and off his head, letting a thick mop of hair down the center of his scalp flop haphazardly to either side. While one hand fastened it to a clip on his belt, the other combed its fingers through his hair, gathering it all and guiding it to hang to his right - not that it made too much of a difference, its length barely scraping the top of his ear. As he did this, though, Yennefer glimpsed small imperfections among the shallow regrowth of his shaved sides. She frowned, her expression at once intrigued and unsettled, and distantly wondered whether they were the cause of the odd haircut. “Yeah. _Nothing_ like our Jaskier.”

“Keep talking like that and I’m going to have to start believing you,” he laughed, turning around upon his wolf’s back to face her. He folded his hands behind his head and laid back upon his wolf’s head, impossibly balanced upon its narrow spine that shifted with every monstrous step.

“Why _wouldn’t_ you believe us?” she challenged. Gesturing between herself and Geralt, she continued, “Your world has a ‘Yennefer’ and a ‘Geralt.’ Why wouldn’t our world have a ‘Jeraskier,’ too?”

“I never said I had a ‘Yennefer,’” he quickly defended.

“No,” she conceded, “but you keep calling me ‘Yen.’”

“I apologized for that.”

“That’s not the point!” She nodded down to Geralt. “That’s _his_ nickname for me, and you were the first of us to say it.”

It was evident from his darkened eyes he recognized her line of thinking. Something about it apparently haunted him - he dismissed it with a shrug. “Lucky guess.”

“And what about me?” Geralt called up to them, if only because the conversation helped him stay awake through the dull travel. A part of him was starting to regret telling Jaskier to avoid drawing unwanted attention - at least then, they’d get to _do_ something. “Or does your machine not count?”

“ _Geralt_ counts!” Jaskier hissed indignantly down from his perch. Settling back into his recline, he accused, “You’re a liar.”

“What?” Geralt scoffed. “You can’t be serious? Why the hell would I lie about my damn name?”

Jaskier parted to list off a line of excuses, but Yennefer cut him off at the pass, shutting down each one before he could. “Geralt’s rather distinctive, to say the least, and does nothing to obscure his identity. Even if he _were_ trying to hide it, your wolf was offline at the time, and therefore not a threat Geralt would be concerned about - if he had any worry about your tongue, he’d just cut it from your mouth. And as for known associates? The only ones who can’t defend themselves well enough are Cirilla, who you’ve already seized, and Jaskier, who you insist doesn’t - can’t - exist.”

To her and Geralt’s astonishment, her words actually managed to leave Jaskier speechless. They revelled in the reprieve, delighted by the small victory, before he finally stumbled through a retort that could not have been more childish. “Y-Yeah, well. He’s lying. He _can’t_ be Geralt!”

“Why not?” Yennefer pressed. “You’re being unreasonable.”

Suddenly, her driver grew immensely irritable. “Fuck you!” he spat, sitting upright once more so he could twist away from her.

“Hey!” Geralt shouted from below. “Show some respect! We’re putting a lot of faith in you for Cirilla’s sake. The _least_ you could do—”

“Piss off!”

An airy, electric whir swelled from the giant wolf. Yennefer and Geralt had barely enough time to react before it suddenly took off, releasing another of its awful howls to the vacant night. Geralt’s fury shrank behind them, even as he urgently kicked Roach’s sides into a full gallop. Yennefer had no choice but to lean forward and wrap her arms around Jaskier’s midsection, lest the sudden burst of speed knock her from the wolf’s back.

“The hell are you doing?!” she yelled above the roar of the wind in their ears.

“Fuck that asshole!” Jaskier screamed back. “It’s not _my_ problem if he can’t keep up!”

Yennefer fumed, frustrated her earlier threat had worn off so quickly. “Yeah?” she hissed, pulling one hand away to begin summoning her magic. “Well let’s _make it_ your problem!”

He twisted around in alarm. He saw the hand and reached for his gun all too late - already, she’d thrown her palm towards the land just ten precious yards ahead of them. His horrified face whipped back around just in time to see the pillar of earth shoot up, unforeseen by either himself or his wolf. It hit its mark, a direct slam straight to the wolf’s chest.

“Damn it!” Jaskier cursed as his wolf stumbled, his hands gripping the back of its neck tighter. It took a few bounds, but the wolf recovered, and now Jaskier was glaring over his shoulder at Yennefer. “Fine!” he snarled, suddenly swinging a leg back to kick towards her gut. “You too, then!”

She deflected his first strike easily enough, but between the wolf’s wavering trajectory and this Jaskier’s unusual swiftness another kick loosened her hold enough for a third and final kick to send her toppling from the wolf’s back. Yennefer hit the ground in a cloud of dust kicked up in the wolf’s wake, coughing and sputtering but refusing to stay down. In just a few short seconds, the wolf was already putting ample distance between them, so before she’d even recovered her breath she threw both hands to the ground and unleashed her magic straight through the earth with a furious scream.

A pillar hadn’t worked. A crater would.

This time, the wolf’s front legs sank too deep to counter its own momentum, their paws scraping and sliding along the sunken earth while the rest of its body hurtled overhead. To make absolutely sure the thing was grounded, Yennefer swiped the air, and a resulting blast collided against the wolf’s side. Somewhere amid the chaos, a stray scream signaled her success in dismounting the treacherous other-worlder - triumphant, but no less pissed or urgent, Yennefer bolted across the field, intent on finding and pinning Jaskier before he could reach his wolf and slip away from her and Geralt.

She would find him soon enough struggling to get off the ground and onto his feet, one hand clutching a limp arm. She spared him no remorse, in part because she couldn’t trust he wasn’t trying to trick her but mostly because she had a bone to pick with him. Her boot found his gut, and from his mouth burst a sputtering, pained grunt before he collapsed back down upon the ground.

“Bitch!” he managed to choke out between gasps for air.

Roach’s shrill whinnying heralded Geralt’s arrival. Yennefer turned to him, but before she could suggest any of a slew of tortures she had in mind he threw a gesture towards Jeraskier’s head. “Axii!”

Instantly, Jaskier’s squirming ceased. His muscles relaxed and laid him down, a gentle haze taking over his eyes. Beside them, they felt the wolf shift upon the ground, but though they raised their hands to fend off an attack they instead found the wolf obediently seated and staring at them. Yennefer frowned, then looked down at the metal device wrapped around Jaskier’s forearm. “It must… connect their minds, somehow… ?”

Geralt raised a single brow. “Good to know.” Pocketing the information for undoubted use later, he knelt beside the quieted Jaskier and glared at him. “Tell me why you refuse to call me ‘Geralt.’”

Jaskier’s whole body winced. The wolf’s paws dug into the ground - Yennefer drew Geralt’s attention to it with an urgent patting of his shoulder. Geralt pursed his lips. “Subconscious blocker. Some kind of trauma?” He looked back at Jaskier in deep thought, slowly surveying the strange ghost of his past. If he wanted any information out of him, he’d have to work his way _around_ the man’s pain, a task made more difficult when that pain was likely the thing they needed to know about.

“Why does it matter?” Yennefer sneered. “He’s a vile, tricksome pest. Just make him open Cirilla’s crate!”

“Doesn’t quite work that way,” Geralt grumbled. “I’d need to be direct about it, know what it is - specifically - I need him to do. Our worlds’ contraptions are different enough that I wouldn’t even know where to begin asking, and I doubt he’s going to disclose that information freely later now that he knows I can do this.”

Yennefer frowned. She’d come to know Geralt well over their many shared years. He was cunning, crafty - had to be in order to navigate the delicate balance of human reception. Geralt didn’t _have_ to do this - he wanted to. _Helping him won’t make up for—_

“You mentioned you recognized our faces,” Geralt loudly declared, interrupting Yennefer’s projections. “Where did you see them before?”

Another flinch, though subtler this time, and a soft murmur. “Dunno.”

“What do you mean, you ‘don’t know’?” Geralt grumbled. “Don’t recognize the place?”

Jaskier’s brow softened. “Don’t remember.”

Geralt hesitated. _Mental trauma, then?_ He thought for a moment, then wove his hand before Jaskier’s face, releasing his hold of the man’s mind.

The wolf beside them settled back down into a lay upon the ground as Jaskier blinked and shook his head. “W-What the fuck?!” he stammered, awkwardly squirming away from Geralt with his one good arm.

Seeing the familiar face, one that had _never_ been repulsed by him, in such a state set a stake through Geralt’s chest. He sat back upon the ground, arms propped upon his knees, but held Jaskier in his piercing gaze. “It’ll be easier if we do this willingly,” he sighed, knowing his words hardly brought any kind of comfort. “We just want to keep Cirilla safe. We don’t have to be friends about it, but we’ll all be a lot happier if we can work this out amicably. That’ll be easier if you help us understand you.” He turned away to raise a brow at Yennefer. “Right, Yen?”

Yennefer watched Jaskier subconsciously twitch at the nickname. Maybe it was petty, but hated that her name alone affected him so negatively. Perhaps Geralt _did_ have a point, buried somewhere beneath all his ulterior motives - if they were going to stick with this guy through his purposes in order to get Cirilla back, they may as well do what they could to make that experience as least miserable as possible. To express this, though, she offered only a sigh, a roll of her eyes, and her taking a seat upon the ground. (And, of course, she took the liberty of doing so between Jaskier and his wolf.)

Jaskier glowered at each of them, then dropped his gaze to ground between them. “Whatever,” he muttered, hand abandoning his limp arm to pluck and idly fidget with a blade of grass. “What do you want to know, then?”

“I want to know—” _What our companionship is like_ , he thought, but he quickly cut himself off and replaced it with something else, refusing to openly admit to such irrelevant curiosities. “—what you remember. If we talk it through, maybe you’ll figure out why you know our faces, and it’ll help you stomach our ensuing association?”

“Have you considered, perhaps, that I don’t _want_ to know?” Jaskier bitterly spat. His dark eyes lifted to stare at them. “Whoever they are, they’re not here. Well, unless they’re… you know. _Actually_ you two, somehow.”

“Is that the case?” Geralt scoffed, eying him suspiciously. “Do you _not_ want to know?”

Jaskier’s eyes snapped to his, like a critter caught in a predator’s sights. He made a face, trying to insist he didn’t… but of course couldn’t. He averted his face, quiet a moment longer, then slipped his eyes shut, at long last letting the screams bubble back up to the surface.

* * *

An alarm shrieked all around him. Lights flashed, throwing stark, distorted shadows in every direction.

He was yelling at someone. The world was too loud.

Something was wrong. Something had _gone_ wrong.

It was all falling apart. But, they couldn’t leave… Not yet.

Who?

A sack landed at his side.

Someone yelled at him. 

Another explosion. Suddenly, the world was too bright. His face burned. He was falling.

Bright silver streaked across the ground.

“GERALT!!!”


	3. Lonely Rolling Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _Demo anata daiji na yume wo egaku  
>  Owaru made wa zutto sou koko de  
> Matteiru_
>> 
>> _But you are painting an important dream  
>  Until you’re done, I’ll be here always  
> Waiting_
> 
> - _  
> [Katamari Damacy Soundtrack - Lonely Rolling Star](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_QydNXI_ok&list=PLk6BQLseS5iZEdYygckMfNX1HOuezp489&index=4)  
> _

The sun breached the far-off horizon, its early-morning rays stretching out across the land like a stirring creature’s sleep-wearied limbs. The gentle light brushed through the blades of grass, slowly transforming the blanket of night into the drifting shadows of day. It rolled across hills and slipped over rocks and danced around trees, then finally broke into a harsh glint as it collided upon the sharp edges of polished metal. Geralt winced, a reflexive hand shooting up to shield his eyes. “Damn wolf,” he grumbled, adjusting his position out of the glare before continuing to stoke their meager campfire. He leaned forward and turned the spit spearing his quarry: a trio of field rabbits he’d caught skittering across the field.

“Oh, you’re not all _that_ bad,” a voice like finely aged wine mused from across the flames.

Geralt passed her a mild glower before checking the quality of their breakfast.

Yennefer’s brow quirked. “Didn’t sleep well?” she asked, noting the disheveled look about him. “You should’ve joined me in my tent.”

“Didn’t feel right,” he grunted in reply.

Normally, that kind of exchange would’ve earned him more chastising, but this particular issue had been weighing on him for years. Understandably, their unwelcome companion hadn’t exactly helped with that. She sighed, instead taking a more encouraging approach as she cast her eyes to the thin figure curled up inside the wolf’s exposed cavity. “He’s not him, Geralt. He only looks like him.”

“And is named like him,” Geralt pointed out. “And acts like him. And sings like him.”

Yennefer couldn’t suppress her curt laugh. “You’re joking, right? Even _I_ have to admit Jaskier performs _far_ better than that ridiculous garbling we witnessed yesterday.”

“That…” He hesitated, unsure himself just how to explain it, then turned and nodded at the still-slumbering stranger. “He stayed up ’til damn near dawn, tinkering away on that ‘decoy’ of his. Only been asleep three, maybe four hours now?” He paused, his face tensing a moment as his focus centered on his enhanced hearing, then he sighed and nodded. “Go over there. He’s doing it now, _been_ doing it off-and-on the whole time.”

Yennefer narrowed her eyes, suspicious of what calamity might greet her ears, but gave in to the request soon enough and carefully picked her way around the campfire to inspect their sleeping companion. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary - apart from everything that made him stick out as a stranger to this world, of course. Wary against actually entering his metal shelter, she found a boulder near its entrance and leaned forward, stilling her breath and acutely studying his form that she might hear better. After a moment, the world’s natural sounds of thrumming insects and rustling grass and drifting wind fell into a distant backdrop and at last she heard it. She couldn’t quite make out the words, mostly because he wasn’t really enunciating them, but even still his gentle breath slipped through his lips in a distinct series of notes, some shorter and some longer, in a steady and swaying tune. It sounded simple enough in composition, something that could probably be easily picked up after a few listens, and so didn’t itself establish him as a bard on equal footing as their own Jaskier. Nonetheless, it was a curious conundrum: he clearly _could_ sing reasonably well, so… why _didn’t_ he? She glanced back at Geralt.

Geralt looked up from their rabbits and caught the look in her eyes. His own widened in alarm. “Yen, don’t—”

The backs of her knuckles rapped unceremoniously against the shelter’s metal frame. “Rise and shine, time for breakfast!”

The jarring noise startled Jaskier awake, groping at his surroundings in a blind search for grounding. “Ack! Eh?! Yen? What the hell?!” He threw his blanket aside and looked towards the racket, and eventually his exhausted eyes found Yennefer eyeing him. Immediately, he calmed, seeming to finally recollect his time and place, and glowered, “Oh, it’s you.”

She frowned. “Was that not who you were expecting?”

“I—” he began, then quickly broke off and took to gathering himself up off the floor. “Nevermind. Doesn’t matter. Breakfast, you said?”

Geralt glanced up as Jaskier perched himself against his wolf’s threshold, opposite Yennefer. His brow rose with distant amusement, noting the peculiar expression settling upon Jaskier’s sleep-tousled face. “You got a problem with meat?”

Jaskier frowned at him. “What’s ‘meat’?”

Yennefer scoffed, though she admittedly found herself intrigued by the question, and growing more so about Jaskier and his world in general. “You’re kidding, right? Your world doesn’t have meat?”

He tilted his head, studying the blackened forms slowly turning about Geralt’s spit. “I’m guessing _that’s_ ‘meat’? Looks like animals. Which, I’ll remind you, we don’t have.”

“Wait, you don’t have _any_ animals?” Geralt gawked. “At all? What do you eat?”

Jaskier passed him an incredulous look, as if _Geralt_ were the crazy one here. “Food?” Belatedly, something occurred to him, and his eyes drifted skyward. “Well, we do have the occasional rat. And there’s bound to be _something_ out in the vast expanse of the Wastelands. But I wouldn’t recommend eating any of it.”

“Sit down and try a bit,” Yennefer snickered with a roll of her eyes. “Better you get used to this world’s food long before we return to civilization.”

He eyed her head-to-toe before slowly, warily, taking a seat just inside his shelter, a safe albeit small distance from the edge of his wolf’s shadow in the early morning light. “You poison it?” he accused, glancing between her and Geralt.

“Wouldn’t be able to get Cirilla back if we did,” Geralt reminded as he stood, lifting the spit off its makeshift mount. He rotated it in his hand, inspecting the skewered rabbits, then with mild effort tugged one off and handed it to Jaskier. “I won’t lie to you - they’re not much for flavor.”

That seemed to be the _least_ of Jasier’s concerns as he reluctantly took the offered meal between two fingers and held it before him. He gave it a look over himself, no doubt looking for some excuse to get him out of the predicament, and made _no_ attempt to hide his disdain. He drew it closer, gave it a sniff. His eyes fell upon one of the rabbit’s haunches. At long last, he released a long and over-dramatic sigh. “Hell, why not. I’m low on crystal anyhow.”

While Geralt and Yennefer exchanged a curious look, Jaskier finally bit into the rabbit - then immediately released it and pulled away. “The hell?!” he fussed. “It’s all… hard!”

“What?” Yennefer scoffed. “Of course it is!”

“Hey, give me a break, lady,” Jaskier scowled. “It’s my first time!” He glared at the rabbit again. “If I wanted to bite something _this_ hard, I’d have gone for _him_.” He raised a smirk at Geralt.

Geralt’s chest swelled with hot air. “Sink your teeth in and tear some off!” he commanded, gesturing impatiently to get everyone’s attention back on the rabbits. He yanked another one off the stick and passed it to Yennefer. “Your world’s food isn’t this dense?”

“Only if it charges by the minute,” he mused in reply. “But if we’re talking about things that aren’t still breathing…” He paused for a moment, a hooked finger rubbing his chin. Geralt and Yennefer suspected he was stalling before having to re-attempt his rabbit. “A lot of it is liquid. A bit like mud, so far as consistency? And sometimes color and taste, if I’m to be honest about it. Occasionally you’ll find a place that’s got good enough tech to make bread. Do you guys have that? It’s a bit like—”

“We have bread,” Yennefer irritably interrupted.

“Oh! Great! Well, so do we.” He inspected his rabbit again, then slowly brought it closer, his eyes narrowed as if he might accuse it of something. “Anything harder than that is either stale or else meant for licking.” He hesitated, then stuck out his tongue and licked the rabbit’s forearm.

Geralt rolled his eyes at the predictably resulting shudder. “You’re not like to get very far with that.”

“Worth a try,” Jaskier groaned. Unfortunately, he’d at that point run out of delays, and so finally had no choice but to do as Geralt had originally suggested. He closed his eyes shut tight and sank his teeth into the rabbit. It took a good bit of effort and some aid pulling with his hands, but he at last wrestled free a small portion of stringy flesh and worked it between his teeth.

In spite of themselves, Geralt and Yennefer watched, intently awaiting his reaction. Partly, there was genuine concern and curiosity for their other-worldly guest. Mostly, they wanted to know whether he was going to cause problems the minute they hit civilization.

“Hmm,” he mumbled through his full mouth, eyes still carefully trained on the corpse between his hands. His companions drew in a bracing breath. “This is… not bad.”

A sigh of relief. Yennefer turned to take her rabbit from Geralt, and the pair of them set into their own breakfasts.

“It’s rather tasteless, though. Needs more spice.”

“Fuck off,” Geralt snarled. “Next time _you_ do the hunting and cooking.”

“Touchy, touchy!” Jaskier tsk’d with a roll of his eyes. Without preamble, he rolled onto his feet and disappeared into his wolf’s cavity, then returned with a metal container small enough to fit in his palm. He flicked the lid open with the tip of his thumb, then demonstrated for them. “Sprinkle just a _dash_ of this, then—” He spat on his rabbit. “Normally you’d use water,” he explained, passing the container to Yennefer, “but I’m not certain—” He broke off when he noticed Yennefer’s peculiar look, then turned to Geralt, who was delivering the same look… and also holding up his leather canteen. “...Oh. Well, then,” he resumed, “just a drop of that will be enough to activate the nanites.”

“Magic in a box,” Geralt chided as he took the little container from Yennefer and sprinkled some of its contents upon his rabbit. “Watch out Yen, you might soon be obsolete.”

Yennefer rolled her eyes, but otherwise ignored the remark as she bit into her rabbit.

Jaskier couldn’t help himself, however. “Magic is just unexplained science,” he preached, catching the tin Geralt tossed back to him. He gestured to the wolf surrounding him. “I _barely_ understand what makes Geralt—”

“What the hell?!” Yennefer cursed, holding out her rabbit and fixing it with an accusatory glare.

Geralt immediately got to his feet, suddenly on high alert. “What’s wrong?” His gleaming eyes narrowed upon Jaskier. “If you’ve done something—”

“This is fucking _delicious_!”

The two men looked back at her, Geralt with relief and Jaskier with victory. When Geralt’s eyes returned to Jaskier, the other man was wearing a smug grin. “Voila! _Magic_.”

Encouraged mostly by Yennefer’s eager snarfing, Geralt tore off a hearty hunk of flesh, frowned, then glared at Jaskier. “Why’s it taste this good?” he challenged through his chewing. “This isn’t just spice.”

“I told you - they’re…” Jaskier trailed off, belatedly realizing, “…Oh, you probably don’t have nanites in this world, do you? They’re…” He struggled with how to explain for a moment, then abandoned the effort and simply summarized, “They react to your taste buds… Your um… Your ‘tastes’ directly. They’re detecting what your tongue thinks it should be tasting, and activating those flavors.”

Good enough.

Yennefer nodded towards a new, humanoid silhouette leaning against one of the wolf’s interior walls. “Do these ‘nanites’ have anything to do with this ‘decoy’ of yours?”

“Oh, no,” Jaskier chortled. “That’s just good old-fashioned robotics!” He hesitated. “Erm. Machine-working.”

“I don’t suppose you’re _finally_ going to let us in on what you’re planning with Ciri?” Geralt grumbled.

Jaskier winced. “Ciri. Right. Um.” He stole another bite of rabbit, then disappeared into his wolf. A moment later, he returned, a weathered parchment in hand. Holding it out for them both to see, he barely had time to start explaining before both their expressions had already gone wide. “H-Hence the decoy! Listen, this asshole’s offering what I can assume by the number of zeros is a lot of money for your little girl, but child trafficking just isn’t my thing. One might even say the notion bothers me. And maybe, just maybe, if… say… a _random_ and _completely unexpected_ … ah… ‘incident’… were to occur in this prick’s immediate vicinity, I wouldn’t be bothered by the news of it.” His eyes suddenly narrowed, flickering between the two of them. “This is all _completely_ theoretical, of course. We’re just postulating. No declarations of ill-intent have been made.”

More raised brows. “Sure,” Yennefer mused. “So why do you need her locked up like that, if you’ve got a fake copy you’re using anyhow?”

“First: because I needed to know what I was copying. Second?” He pointed suspiciously between them. “So no one _else_ can take her and steal _my_ bounty. And third…” He rolled up the parchment and leaned over to shove it back into whatever compartment he’d produced it from. “…because I can’t exactly have Big Fancy Mr. Army Man seeing double, now _can_ I?”

“Great,” Geralt insincerely replied. “So, when your plan _doesn’t_ work and Nilfgaard finds out you tried to play them - what happens then?” He gestured to where Cirilla was presumably still stored inside the wolf. “You really think they’re going to let you out of that camp without confirming it’s really her?”

Jaskier floundered. “I’ll. Um. I’ll improvise! Worst case, they kill me, and then all my problems go away anyhow.”

“Except then _we_ won’t be able to free the _real_ Cirilla,” Yennefer bit back. “And anyways, death is hardly the worst thing they can do to you. They have their own regiment of mages.”

“Sorry, regiment of what now?” he curiously inquired.

She sighed, then snapped her fingers. Instantly, an unsettling feeling took hold in Jaskier’s gut, and a moment later he dropped the remains of his rabbit and threw himself to one side, coughing and sputtering over a nearby rock. Another snap and a triumphant smirk later, the feeling ceased.

Jaskier whirled, one finger jabbed in her direction while his other hand anchored him to the rock. “Hey! Any more of that, and—” His eyes fluttered. It took him a moment to realize why - and when he did he dove back inside his wolf. “What the hell! The _sun_ is out! You could have _killed_ me!!!”

“Could have,” Yennefer shrugged, “but didn’t.”

Jaskier glowered at her, then warily looked passed her to the fields stretching out all around them. By now, the sun had begun its climb into mid-morning, and the shadows cast by patches of tall grass and scattered boulders were growing shorter by the minute. Warily, he pulled at the fingers of his glove, slowly working it off his hand, then threw his hand out beyond the protective shade of his wolf before he could second-guess himself. The rest of him recoiled almost immediately, fully expecting his digits to be seared to a crisp… but nothing happened. He blinked, curiously eying his hand as he turned it over in the sun, marveling the way the light fell upon his pale flesh and made it seem to glow.

Watching his childlike fascination, Yennefer and Geralt shared a moment of rare compassion. She turned to the witcher and pursed her lips. _He really IS out of sorts, isn’t he?_

Geralt met her gaze, received her words, then stood and moved towards Jaskier. He set a heavy hand upon the man’s shoulder, earning himself a startled glance followed by a suspicious quiet. “Look,” he sighed, “our deal still stands. We’ll help you get to Nilfgaard’s camp, if you really think that money is going to help you. But I think it’s worth considering other options. Ones that _won’t_ get you killed, perhaps?”

“Like what?” Jaskier scoffed, shrugging off Geralt’s hand. “Where else am I going to get that kind of money?” He leaned back and made a point of looking Geralt over head-to-toe. “Are _you_ going to pay me?”

“What are you planning to do with it anyway?” Yennefer pointed out. “I really doubt a pile of coin is going to help you get back home.”

“No, but it’ll buy me a place to live and work on Geralt while I work on the whole ‘how the hell did I get here’ problem. Current theory?” He leaned over so he could erratically gesture about their surroundings. “This must be the past. Humans haven’t fucked over the planet yet - that’s why your sun hasn’t become an actual death ray yet.”

Geralt knew where this was going. He folded his arms and raised a brow. “And the ghouls we fought yesterday? Or the elves, golems, and dragons you’ve yet to realize live here?”

“Went the way of the horses,” Jaskier quickly dismissed. “And don’t you start talking me in circles with things that don’t—”

“I’m of elven lineage,” Yennefer interrupted. It was usually a rather sore point for her but, in this moment? She couldn’t help but feel smug about it.

“Which is _precisely_ why you look so familiar!” he easily adapted, grinning between her and Geralt. “You must be the same person I remember, only we haven’t met yet.” He clapped his hands, as if wiping them clean of dust. “Mystery solved! Case closed!”

“Right,” Geralt muttered, finishing his rabbit and tossing the remains so he could set about cleaning up their camp. “And you recognize _me_ because…?” He caught Jaskier just before his reply. “I live an extended life, but I’m no elf.”

Jaskier pivoted his words. “Well. Um. A descendant, then.” Seeing Geralt about to counter that suggestion, he hurriedly added, “Or maybe Yen here just has very particular tastes in men.”

Yennefer released a loud scoff, but otherwise offered no reply before turning to pack up her tent.

Jaskier eyed her as she departed, then glanced awkwardly at Geralt. “I haven’t read the room wrong, have I? The two of you _are_ fucking, are you not?”

Geralt stared at him with enough intensity to set a dry brush ablaze. “Are you always this blunt?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” he shrugged. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ then on the fucking?”

“You’re insufferable,” Geralt grumbled with a roll of his eyes. But in spite of himself, he couldn’t help but ask as he continued about the camp, “What about the pair from your memories? Are _they_ fucking?”

When no answer immediately came, he paused his cleaning to look over his shoulder. Jaskier had quieted, staring at his half-eaten rabbit as if it’d give him any clues. “I… I’m not sure, to be frank,” he mumbled. “I think there’s… _something_ there, but…” He suddenly decided he didn’t want to dwell on it anymore, chucking his rabbit off to join Geralt’s and turning to regard his wolf with arms spread wide. “Whatever it is, it’s _nothing_ like what I share with Geralt!” he loudly declared.

Geralt heard Yennefer’s snicker from across the camp. He sighed and looked Jaskier over, trying but failing to get a better read of the man. “And, by ‘Geralt’ you mean the wolf, right?”

Another pause, even more uncomfortable than the last. “Of course,” Jaskier finally replied, though his manner was completely unconvincing. It didn’t help that he kept himself adamantly turned away from Geralt as he retreated into the wolf’s cavity to retrieve and don his helmet. “Who else would I mean?”

A shrill, piercing cry displaced Geralt’s snarled retort. Immediately, the pair turned in the direction of the bestial sound - already, bolts of lightning broke free of Yennefer’s palms, providing a crackling backdrop to her yelled warning. “Basilisk! From the southeast!”

The pair dove for cover inside the wolf just as the basilisk swept across it, Yennefer’s attack striking with just enough force to knock it off its course and send its talons raking harmlessly across the surrounding grass. As soon as it passed, a powerful beat of its wings lifted it back into the sky, circling for a second approach. Geralt drew his steel sword and Jaskier snatched his helmet. Yennefer narrowed her eyes at him while taking position beside the wolf’s cavity and readying another spell. “I really don’t think that’s going to do much against those teeth!”

“Oh, it’s for much more than just protection, Beautiful!” he declared with a wink just before disappearing within his helmet’s impenetrable veil.

She didn’t have time to argue, instead rolling her eyes before setting her sights back upon their foe. Already a few yards away from the camp, Geralt extracted and lobbed a grenade into the air, but a last-minute shift of the basilisk’s wings carried it safely just outside the explosion. Yennefer flicked her fingers, a small fireball swirling to life in her palm. She cast it into the air, its path tried and true. Once again, the creature’s reflexes saved it, its wings twisting it into a backwards roll. She cursed through her teeth. “We have to ground it!”

“Yeah, I’m _trying_ !” Geralt yelled back, keen eyes narrowed upon his target. To his side, his hand struck its pose, poised and ready. The basilisk curled towards him in the sky, then took a sharp dive, talons outstretched. _Steady… Steady…_ Geralt waited until the very last moment, then threw out his Igni. With a furious screech, the basilisk diverted - right into the path of Geralt’s steel sword. He felt the thin resistance as it sliced across the beast’s wing, streaks of blood spurting from the ruptured flesh.

Its agony filled the air as it tumbled across the ground. Yennefer ran forward with another fireball - this time, it hit its mark, colliding mercilessly upon the basilisk’s head. It shrieked and thrashed, struggling to shake the embers from its eyes. In a final bout of frustration, it beat its wings and kicked off into the air… _just_ before Geralt threw out another sign.

“Damn it!” he bellowed, the purple columns of his Yrden capturing naught but the dirt disturbed by the basilisk’s escape. Returning his blade to the ready, he rose his snarl to the skies to reset his mark… then frowned as a tiny blue light caught his keen eyes, a small pinpoint upon the wounded basilisk’s neck. “What—”

A burst of wind and bizarrely hollow howl broke across the field a split moment before Jaskier’s mechanical wolf streaked over their heads. Jaskier’s excited whoop fell back from where he clung to his mount, just behind the wolf’s flattened ears. Instinct preceded recognition: before either Geralt or Yennefer had finished registering what was happening, they knowingly ducked their heads and shielded themselves with their arms. Sure enough, strips of flesh and splatters of blood sprayed all around them, shortly followed by the heavy pound and resulting tremble of the earth as the wolf came crashing back down. More shrieking strained the air as the wolf viciously against its prey, ruthlessly whipping its head in a desperate attempt to dissuade further struggle. To their curiosity, Geralt and Yennefer watched as the helmeted Jaskier stood, his feet apparently held in place by some unseen brace, and aimed his arm towards the basilisk. Another blue light shot towards a raised talon - an instant later, a forepaw rose and parried the attack with a swipe of its own.

Jaskier’s covered face turned towards them. He threw his hands to the sides.

“Oh, right,” Yennefer mumbled, hurrying forward and summoning fresh embers to her fingertips.

Geralt frowned, but followed suit nonetheless, readying another Igni as he dashed across the field.

A chorus of pained screeches, dominant howls, and raging flames enveloped their relentless battle. It took a moment for the three of them to find their rhythm, eventually falling into step with Jaskier corralling the beast, Yennefer blinding it and searing its hide, and Geralt exploiting these newfound vulnerabilities. The basilisk rose a wing. Jaskier marked it with his blue light. The wolf struck with its paw, pinned it to the ground. Yennefer reduced an expanse of precious chest plating to little more than fried panels. Geralt leaped into the air, the rising sun glinting off the flat of his sword.

A final, dying cry sang out as Geralt’s blade sunk through the basilisk’s chest. Its limbs fell limp, its body falling to a lifeless hang from the wolf’s jowls. As Geralt and Yennefer inspected themselves and gathered their breath, Jaskier clapped his hands together and cheerily declared, “Well, now, wasn’t _that_ exciting?”

Yennefer eyed him with a mild smirk. “I’ll admit - you’re no better a singer, but at least you’re useful.”

“Thanks,” Jaskier replied with a small three-fingered salute. “Though, mild correction: I don’t sing.”

Geralt glared at him while he slid his sword back into its sheath. “Don’t play dumb. We heard you.”

“What, back in the forest?” he scoffed. “Hardly what I’d call ‘singing.’ That was ‘rapping,’ which is _completely_ different.”

Geralt and Yennefer exchanged a look, but didn’t press the matter - Yennefer shook her head and stepped towards the wolf. “Well anyway, now that’s dealt with, shall we be off then? Be a gentleman and help me up.”

“Why, it would be a delight,” Jaskier grinned beneath his helmet, coaxing his wolf into a lay upon the ground with a gentle stroke of its synthetic pelt. Feet still secured in their unseen nooks, he leaned over to offer an outstretched hand, which Yennefer made grateful use of to hoist herself up.

Settling into her previous spot atop the massive wolf’s back, she glanced down at Geralt and rose a brow. “I don’t suppose you’ll be joining us this time?”

To her surprise, Geralt was staring at the wolf again, though this time with far less judgement and suspicion than before. Now, he seemed touched with… intrigue, more like? As she parted her lips to check on him, he suddenly turned away to cast his gaze across the field. “Fuck,” he grumbled, his horse nowhere to be found. He moved a few paces away from them and put his fingers to his lip. A short, sharp whistle rang through the air - somewhere in the distance, the whinny of his frightened steed sounded back. He turned back to the others. “Go on, I’ll—” He broke off. Frowned.

Was the wolf looking at him?

Atop the strange machine, Jaskier shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He snickered and flashed Geralt a finger-gun. “We’ll take it easy, so you have a _chance_ of rejoining us.”

“Right,” he mumbled in reply, too low to really matter to his companions as the wolf rose to all-fours. He watched them as the wolf took off into a gentle bound, unable to shake the familiarity that had suddenly gripped him. Perhaps triggered by their battle, or perhaps simply developed as he got through his initial shock, a sense settled deep within him that he somehow knew this wolf. A funny thing, considering the name “Geralt” even _still_ felt wrong in some way.

He heard the earthy plod of hoofsteps drawing up beside him. Felt the short huff of snorted air, and the brush of short hair against his cheek. He blinked, a hand subconsciously moving to stroke the long face that lingered beside him, and felt the realization dawn across his face like the rising sun.

_Roach… ?_

* * *

An alarm shrieked all around him. Lights flashed, throwing stark, distorted shadows in every direction.

He was yelling at someone. A comrade. The world writhed with tumultuous panic.

They were in trouble. They had to escape.

There wasn’t time.

A sack landed at his side.

Eyes stared at him through the smoke, distorted by the heat. What were they afraid of?

“Take that and run!”

“But what about—”

Another explosion. Suddenly, the world was too bright. His face burned. He was falling.

Bright silver streaked across the ground. The sun glinted off rows of sharp, bared teeth.

“GERALT!!!”


	4. Solar Sailer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> - _[TRON: Legacy Reconfigured - Solar Sailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXetZiLyiIw&list=PLk6BQLseS5iZEdYygckMfNX1HOuezp489&index=5)_

“WOOO!”

Yennefer reflexively reached towards her bizarre companion, only partly settling when he appeared to flop easily back upon his wolf’s head, apparently completely unharmed and furthermore unphased by the inherent danger of doing so while said wolf was racing across the land at… well, she assumed they weren’t actually going _quite_ at the wolf’s top-speed, but it was damn fast nonetheless. Her gaze settling into more of an irritated seethe than an outright glare, she grumbled, “You seem quite in tune with your mount.”

He winked and blew her a kiss. “And you with yours.”

She rolled her eyes and shifted back into her seat, resolving that she really _didn’t_ care if he found a way to recklessly kill himself. “We’ve had a lot of practice.” She smirked, leaving it an open question just _what_ it was they’d practiced. To her tickled curiosity, it bothered him _far_ less than it used to bother their own Jaskier. “As aggravatingly reckless as you are,” she chuckled, turning to take in the sprawling midday horizon, “you’re quite amusing to be around.” She paused for a moment, wondering if she might have found a relaxed enough moment to pry, then casually added, “And don’t tell Geralt I said this, but I admit your singing’s not half bad, either.”

“He can hear your lying plenty well enough,” Jaskier chuckled, lowering a hand to lovingly stroke his wolf’s artificial fur.

“I’m not lying!” she smiled in return. Hopefully, if she kept the exchange amicable, he’d open up about the matter? “We heard you this morning.”

For a fleeting moment, Jaskier stilled, and Yennefer glimpsed something like a shadow pass behind across his visage. She’d expected him to perhaps respond with embarrassment, maybe having not realized they’d heard, but instead he shut his eyes and leaned back into his wolf, erecting a smirk in place of the dread she’d sworn was about to surface. “That scuffle rough you up that much, huh? You should relax a bit. Enjoy the scenery.” He peeked one eye open and made a show of searching the disturbed sea of grass flaring out behind the wolf. “Looks to me we’ve put a decent enough lead on your boyfriend to sneak in a quickie without his noticing?”

She rose a brow at his unabashed forwardness. “I’ll pass.” Yennefer was hardly so easily deterred, however, and pressed the topic further. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Our Jaskier _is_ a bard, after all.”

“Right,” he returned, a subtle irritation beginning to seep into his tone. “This ‘Jaskier’ I keep hearing about but yet remains thoroughly absent!” He took a moment to comb his hand through his uneven hair and pass her a full-charm wink. “That is, of course, apart from the _genuine_ model. Never go for the knock-offs, Beautiful - it’s very rarely worth it.”

Yennefer had to concede the point. “Fine then. If not a bard, then what? I presume your world still requires you do _something_ to provide a life for yourself?”

He shot her a winning smile. “Can’t you tell?”

Jaskier was obviously being snarky, but nonetheless Yennefer loathed to shy away from a challenge. She leaned her head back and narrowed her eyes upon him, sizing him up and taking careful study of him. “Well, we already know you’re a skilled fighter,” she began. “That said, this ‘companion’ of yours doesn’t look to be particularly suited to that sort of thing. It’s plenty competent, sure enough, but its _primary_ purpose seems to be more around storage and transportation.” She watched his brow rise in interest. Taking this as a sign she was at least on the right track, she continued on. “I’d wager its combat capabilities are more for fending off attackers than being one itself - or perhaps for enduring whatever environment you hail from. You’ve already mentioned, after all, that your sun would burn you to a crisp, so it’s not that difficult to conceive you face many threats in the natural world. All of that together with what I’ll _generously_ call a ‘loose’ sense of morals leads me to believe you’re some sort of bandit or smuggler.”

Through her analysis, Jaskier’s head steadily nodded, following along with distant amusement. At times, his body betrayed a stray twitch or wince, inadvertently cluing her in to things which struck closer to home or remained painful thoughts for him, but he acknowledged none of it - she doubted tackling them head-on would prove very productive, so let it be. By the end of it, he seemed to be taking her in with a kind of reminiscing approval, another oddity that made it impossible not to wonder what version of her he’d known in his own life. “Not bad, Beautiful,” he chuckled, lowering one hand to lovingly stroke the side of his wolf’s neck. “Geralt and I do what we gotta do to survive.” He shrugged. “Not much more to it than that.” Then, he scowled, and quickly tacked on, “And _singing_ has no place in that.”

For now, she backed away from that particular curiosity, raising her hands in surrender of the point. “Alright, alright, I get it.” She tilted her head, arms folding in her lap. _Maybe if I get him talking about our world, it could reveal things about his?_ She raised a hand to the side, inviting him to behold her. “Your turn.”

“You’re lovely and threatening,” he replied with a nonchalant shrug. “What’s more to know?” But he caught the look in her eye, and survival instinct alone had his hands up and waving defensively. “Okay, okay! Let’s see…” He gave her a quick once-over, then began his dissection with an accompanying flourish. “Well, you do that… glowy stuff. So far as I’ve seen, it’s all been for fighting, but I did notice you’re _far_ better rested - and better dressed - than your boyfriend and I so I’m guessing it’s got some everyday applications as well. You remind me of some rich, beautiful asshole, but you lack their arrogant self-righteousness. In fact, the two of you seem almost - _almost!_ \- as pissed off at the world as I am, so I can’t help but wonder if you’ve spent a similar portion of your life getting shit on.”

“Hmph,” she grumbled, not entirely satisfied with the answer. Just like the Jaskier she remembered, this one had a remarkable ability to say absolutely nothing with far too many words - nothing she cared about, anyway. She shrugged it off, already trying to discern her next play at actually getting to know the meat of the man before her. “That’s hardly noteworthy around here.”

“Yeah,” Jaskier sarcastically replied with a raised brow turned to the sprawling, vibrant landscape around them. “Place seems like a real dump.” Yennefer’s lips parted to point out just how rampant the grotesque dangers around them roamed, but before she could get a word in edgewise he already continued on - and, at last, revealed the tiniest glimpse of something _real_. “On the bright side, at least you two’ve helped each other through it since childhood.”

She hesitated, immediately focused upon the stray detail. “Have we?” she prompted, keeping her urging to a minimum for fear too much pressure would elicit another of his anxious redirections.

“Well, of course!” he shrugged, none the wiser. “I imagine it probably wasn’t the easiest thing, what with the military keeping him on such a tight leash. Paid off though in the end, didn’t it? I mean, if he hadn’t stuck around, I’m not certain _anyone_ could—” By chance, his eyes wandered back her way, and in an instant the easy flow of recollections dried up faster than an imagined oasis. A splinter of his face winced, and as if in a daze he remarked, “You’re quite easy to get along with.”

 _Damn it!_ she silently cursed behind gritted teeth. She buried her frustrations below blinking pleasantries, forcing a hollow smile across her face. “I think about half the Continent would beg to differ.”

A high-pitched trilling disturbed his momentary confusion. His eyes fluttered, and he glanced down at the metal contraption around his forearm. A wide grin broke out upon his lips. “The kind folks in the next town over, for example?” He looked up at her and showed her the flat, smooth expanse covering one portion of his arm, an amalgam of colored lights strewn across its surface. A cluster of green dots hovered along one edge, a translucent circle periodically radiating out from each of them. As she leaned forward for a closer look, brow furrowed, he pointed at the dots and explained, “Geralt shares information with me through this panel. All that green? Signs of life. These darker, rigid shapes are obstructions in Geralt’s scan - so, buildings, probably.” He jabbed a rectangle blinking near the bottom of the screen, and to her great relief the sound silenced.

Yennefer frowned, then sat up and craned her neck to peer around Jaskier and into the distance ahead of him. If she squinted, she could barely see the dull brown patches of weather-wearied huts resting along the horizon. “Well that’s handy,” she remarked with understated intrigue.

“Gotten us out of quite a few pickles,” Jaskier replied. He hesitated, then shook his head, his expression pinched with another bout of confusion. “Geralt and I, that is. The wolf.” She watched as he appeared to contemplate something, then finished turning around to sit himself properly upon his wolf’s neck. “I suppose you want to stop and wait for your boyfriend, now the day’s starting to wane? We’re probably looking at a good few hours before the poor boy finally catches us up!”

She sighed and shook her head, resigning herself to abandoning any further quests for insight. “You’re nowhere near suitable to be gallivanting around civilization,” she grumbled, turning to scan rolling hills surrounding the small province. She spotted the edges of dense, dark green, then tapped his arm to draw his attention in its direction. “Get us into the woods before anyone sees us. Don’t want anyone trying to hire Geralt against us.”

Jaskier turned and passed her a funny look, and only then did she realize just how much explaining her words called for - especially given the man _still_ insisted “Geralt” wasn’t Geralt’s name. Tempting as it was to try and terrify the man with vivid stories of Geralt’s vast, horrific conquests, she resigned herself to the likelihood he’d just end up either confused or aroused. Rather than bother with it, she simply wove her hand and rolled her eyes. “Nevermind, just trust me and do it.”

* * *

_“We could head to the coast? Get away for awhile.”_

Geralt snapped Roach’s reigns, encouraging her faster through the dense forest. “Faster, Roach!” he growled through gritted teeth. They’d been able to keep Jaskier’s giant wolf in sight the whole day, if but barely, but the minute they’d slipped into the forest the trees proved too thick for even Geralt’s senses to glimpse those giant streaks of silver-white fur. Apparently, drawing closer to civilization prompted at least _some_ degree of caution, for Geralt couldn’t even hear the thundering strike of the wolf’s massive paws across the ground, leading him to suspect Jaskier had eased their pace.

_“Life’s too short.”_

He clenched his eyes shut tight. Focused his senses. When he looked out through the forest again, every chipped bark, every shuddering leaf, every swaying blade of grass consumed his sight. The distant rumblings of woodland creatures and fluttering birds filled his head. He swam in the thick, humid stench of stale air and festering animal refuse. He revelled in it, thanking its swift banishing of jagged, pale peaks and mournful, whispered dreams and crisp, thin air.

 _Now’s not the time_ , he told himself, scouring the flurry of trees as best he could. _I can barely handle one Jaskier, I don’t need to be chasing after two!_

But even as he told himself as much, and even though he successfully muted those long-ago memories, he couldn’t help but contemplate the parallels between their worlds. Even if Jaskier insisted to the contrary, it was obvious he’d known Geralt and Yennefer in his own world, though it seemed those recollections drowned beneath whatever trauma left him with metal glinting along his scalp. What little the man _did_ seem to remember painted grim prospects at best: yelling, some kind of explosion, the knowledge that something had gone terribly wrong. If Geralt’s suspicions were right and it was Roach’s parallel, not his own, that Jaskier commanded, then that meant the name Jaskier remembered yelling was not for the trusted mount below him but rather the smoke-filtered face above.

A face that, best as any of them could tell, had been swallowed soon thereafter in a torrent of metal and flame.

 _That’s what this is really about_ , he miserably thought. At long last, his keen sight caught the faintest sliver of silver in the far distance. _It’s a false equivalence. Just because this Jaskier’s Geralt MIGHT have died doesn’t mean my Jaskier—_

He cut himself off with another violent shake of his head. “Hyah!” he yelled, alongside another snap of the reins. The faintly acidic smell of burnt air reached his nose, confirming the presence of the giant wolf and the strange energy it expelled. “Jaskier?!” he called into the forest, sitting a bit more upright upon Roach’s saddle so he could search with a bit more reach. “Yenn?!”

“Geralt!”

Yennefer’s voice caught his ear, and even before Roach had finished slowing down Jaskier’s wolf rounded into view. As they drew near, he couldn’t help but anxiously consider the large, manufactured mass - and Yennefer spied his concern. She frowned up at him, her hands instinctively moving to take Roach’s reins and hold her steady while Geralt dismounted. _What’s wrong? Did something happen?_

Geralt returned her mental inquiry with a curt shake of his head. “Not now,” he muttered, low as he could manage. Still, his eyes never left the wolf. “We should get to an inn first. Where’s—”

“Voila!”

The sudden shout startled Geralt. In a flash, he whirled, the tip of his blade immediately settling at… He hesitated, a pensive look gripping his features. “Jask… ?”

The man rolled his eyes and carelessly pushed Geralt’s blade aside with the backs of his fingers. “Duh? Who else would you expect?”

Yennefer awkwardly cringed, then passed Geralt an apologetic look. “I _told_ you not to surprise him,” she chastised. Looking back at him, she fixed Jaskier with a hard glare. “You may have some kind of death wish, but _we_ would very much prefer you have your crisis _after_ you return Ciri.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he dismissed with a wave. With Geralt’s blade warily returning to its sheath, he gave a little twirl, finishing with a flourish and flashing a smile Geralt and Yennefer imagined to be Step 1 in his tried-and-true seduction technique. “Yennefer here did a _lovely_ job on me, don’t you think? These threads fit me like a glove! She must’ve been watching me _very_ closely to have made such a perfect—”

“I’m not jealous,” Geralt abruptly cut in, “and you look ridiculous.” His eyes shifted to Yennefer, the real problem evident in the clench of his jaw and the purse of his lips.

She anxiously glanced between them, then met Geralt’s eyes and placed her apology in Geralt’s mind. _Someone might recognize him, especially if you and I are with him. He has to look the part._

It fully made sense, but it didn’t make it any easier for Geralt to swallow. The clothes Yennefer conjured for him were _exactly_ the sort of garb Jaskier would’ve worn: bright-colored doublet embroidered with glittering beads and thread, thin tunic peeking through a few buttons strategically left undone, waist-high and slim-fitting slacks tucked into dark leather boots. The ensemble evoked just the right balance of loudness and intrigue that Jaskier wrapped himself in, and it made the sweep of rich brown hair that hung too long in some places while shaved too short in others all the more jarring and unpleasant for Geralt to bear.

“Well, _I_ like it,” Jaskier insisted with a huff, turning into a slight bow towards Yennefer while one hand twirled to raise its middle finger Geralt’s way. “Thank you, Yennefer. Your handiwork will surely help me melt seamlessly into this world’s hubbub without a single second glance!”

Geralt rolled his eyes and gathered Roach’s reins in his hand. “Presuming your mouth doesn’t blow it.”

Before Geralt could realize what he’d said, Jaskier threw a smirk over his shoulder. “Would you like me to?” he offered, suggestively slipping his eyes between Geralt’s face and his loins. “I know we’ve been off to a rough start, but I wouldn’t say ‘no’!”

Whether fueled by his irritation or simply because he’d grown used to this more vulgar version of Jaskier - maybe even because focusing on and embracing that difference kept him squarely separated in Geralt’s mind from his own Jaskier - Geralt found himself snarling back a quip of his own. “If that’ll keep you gagged.”

As much to Jaskier’s surprise as his own, the remark found its own modicum of success, reducing Jaskier to a silent bite of his lip as he dreamily watched Geralt storm past him and towards the village. Unfortunately, it was a fleeting victory: he vastly underestimated Geralt’s range of hearing, and without realizing he could still very much be understood by the witcher’s superhuman senses turned to Yennefer and pressed, “Is he really that big? Do you think he would?”

She shook her head before following after Geralt. “Maybe leave that particular investigation until _after_ you’ve returned his daughter, hm?”

They share a snicker, both of them feeling the irritation their remarks stirred in Geralt, but the witcher held his tongue - mostly, unbeknownst to them, because he’d taken to sneaking every stray glance he could towards the dormant wolf they’d hidden in a nestle of leaves and overgrowth. Taking the strange creation in under this new light, with the name “Roach” mentally assigned to it rather than “Geralt,” he felt… more at ease, somehow. Like his gut had finally settled after a particularly troublesome meal. Of course, senses and feelings, though often a useful guide, were never enough to form any full certainty or decision on. He considered he could ask Jaskier directly, but with how poorly previous attempts of this nature had gone the outlook on another inquiry seemed rather bleak. Normally, he might not have given a damn - but this man had Ciri in tow, and furthermore…

Try as he might, he found he simply could not keep this Jaskier and his own fully separated.

He resolved to relay his suspicions to Yennefer, at the very least. Each with a mug of ale in hand, watching Jaskier charm a small gaggle of farm girls with the morning’s heavily edited heroics, Geralt spelled out his suspicions. Yennefer nodded methodically with each word, idly running her fingertips along the rim of her mug in reflection of her careful contemplation. “Well, I know one thing for sure: he’s got his own ‘Geralt,’ and unless he underwent some _significant_ alterations his Geralt isn’t that wolf.”

“Worked all that out from a single ride?” Geralt mused over the rim of his drink.

She shot him a look as she continued, “We played a ‘guessing game,’ of sorts. I took a gander at what sort of life he leads back home, he did the same with me.”

“Really?” he grunted, though his attention remained obviously fixed on the flirtatious display before them. “And how well did you peg him?”

“Wasn’t my guess I’m talking about,” she replied, ignoring his double entendre. “It was his. For the most part, it was pretty superficial, he didn’t really indicate anything thought-provoking or insightful about us. But, then…” She quieted, still deciphering the odd turn of conversation. “He started talking about things as if they’d really happened - things that are obviously out of place.”

At last, she’d drawn Geralt’s intrigue, his furrowed brow turning towards her as he lowered his mug. “Like what?”

“That you and I met as children. That you were in the military. That… That something happened, I’m not sure what, but significant enough to be thankful we had each other through it.” She shook her head, doubting herself. “I suppose it’s _possible_ he really thought that about the two of us, but the way he spoke… It was like he was recalling old memories rather than taking a stab at the unknown. As if I knew what he was talking about and was remembering them, too. And then…” She hesitated, then turned a smirk to Geralt. “Well, something seemed to occur to him, and he suddenly remarked that I was ‘easy to get along with.’”

Geralt scoffed and turned back to his ale. “More evidence he’s nothing like Jaskier.”

Much to his chagrin, a deft hand slipping between Geralt’s mouth and his mug to force it back down on the table. “The _point_ is,” Yennefer continued with an exasperated sigh and ignoring his scowl, “I think the three of _them_ are at least similar enough to the three of us that we might be able to draw insight between us.” She hesitated, then placed her thoughts in Geralt’s mind. _Do you remember the way he reacted when we said Ciri’s name?_

A fresh flame lit in Geralt’s eyes. Beyond whatever had or hadn’t happened to their mirror selves, and what might be happening to their Jaskier, now also stood the question of Ciri and her strange abilities. Even if things only glanced beside each other in similarity, that might be just enough for them to gain some kind of insight into the young girl and her strange Destiny. If there was any knowledge to be gained, any slight clue into even where to look, certainly it was worth investigating. And yet, even as he contemplated the possibilities, his frown deepened, and slowly his head started to shake. “So, what are you suggesting? He’s not exactly the most forthcoming with what little he remembers, and what he doesn’t is buried under enough trauma that his body rejects my Axii.”

“What if multiple witchers tried at once?” Her words drew an intense stare from Geralt, and she quickly continued, “We could take him to Kaer Morhen, and maybe if he willingly submits to multiple, simultaneous Axii—”

“Or maybe the witches of Aretuza,” he pointedly countered. “I bet you and Tissaia could dismantle the man’s mental locks with ease.” Noting Yennefer’s slight bristle, he knew his message had been received and returned to his ale. Both locations were sensitive topics to each of them, and beyond that would expose Jaskier to a slew of very powerful - and in turn very dangerous - people. Even if neither of them cared for the strange man beyond his current dominion over Ciri, how those particular groups would react to news of an entire other universe bleeding into their own world was a gamble neither of them were willing to make.

Not yet, at least.

Yennefer sighed, then cast her gleaming eyes back out upon the tavern. “We should start by at least telling him.”

“Telling him what?” Jaskier’s sudden collapse into their table’s bench startled Geralt out of his quiet consideration of his ale, enough that he damn near splashed himself with it. His resulting glare, however, apparently had no effect on the eager and jubilant wanderer. “I’d recommend getting it over sooner rather than later,” he continued as he adjusted into a proper sit, leaning towards Yennefer as though she actually needed his advice. “Unless it’s likely to flip his lid. Worked a job with this one bloke who _seriously_ needed a bath and—”

“Does the word ‘roach’ mean anything to you?” Geralt unceremoniously interrupted.

Jaskier flinched, but tried to brush it off. “Ah! Right! Now, _this_ one, I know! Okay? It’s those things in the sewers - the ones with the tails and the stubby little ears and they steal all your—”

“Those are rats,” Yennefer groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose, “but I get the feeling you already know there’s a relevance to the question.”

He squirmed under their conjoined staring, then finally sighed with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “Alright, alright! But look, don’t turn me over to the authorities, yeah?” He glanced between their confused furrows and decided to take that as agreement. “Great! Okay, so, I can’t be certain, what with the, you know…” He twirled his finger about his head. “But, far as I can gather, it’s Geralt’s classification. Like an… Umm… a model? A tag? A… A thing the moneyhats use to sort us scavengers and make it easier on themselves to bag us. They catch a scan on Geralt, he rings up in their system as a ‘roach,’ and when I pass through the checkpoints they check for smuggled goods.” Before either of them could say anything, he swiftly jabbed a finger in each of their faces. “Which I am _not_ admitting to, for the record!”

Everything he’d just said took a side seat for a moment while Geralt snarled at him. “You literally have a little girl suspended in a crate in your cryodoll’s hull.”

Jaskier looked truly offended by the remark. “Which I am _borrowing_ with every intention of returning!” he countered. “That’s _not_ smuggling!”

“Why do you think that’s Geralt’s… tag?” Yennefer asked, glossing through the information dump for whatever mapped close enough to their world for her to grasp. “Is that listed somewhere?” With a clear idea of what she meant by “somewhere” but not the word to indicate it, she gestured to Jaskier’s wrist, where they’d skillfully obscured his brace under his doublet’s sleeve.

“It’s… Um…” All of a sudden, he grew sheepish, glancing between them. “Well, you know. One of the things that’s stuck, you know?” Again, he pointed at his head, though this time with much more reserve.

That was all Geralt required to inspire him to his feet with a huff. “Come on,” he grunted, already several paces towards the doors.

As Yennefer rose to follow, Jaskier scrambled to his feet. “What? Hey! We _just_ got here!”

“Not _our_ fault you spent the whole time letching,” Yennefer shrugged.

“Oh, come on now, Beautiful!” he whined as they all stepped out into the crisp night. “A man’s got his needs, you know? And neither if you two are being particularly generous on that front. Aside from with each other, I assume.”

“Might help if you stopped calling her that rather than her actual name,” Geralt grumbled from ahead, picking their way through the town.

“Aw, now you’re on me, too?” Jaskier huffed. “What do you care? It’s not like she minds!”

“You don’t know that,” Yennefer pointed out. “You’ve never asked me.”

Jaskier paused and blinked. “Haven’t I? I’d swear I did!” Only then did he take a gander at their current position and Geralt’s trajectory, and a fresh alarm had him scurrying as best he could to catch up with the witcher. “Hold on, where are we going?! Wasn’t the whole point to stay the night in _actual_ shelter?”

“We will,” Geralt negligently dismissed with a wave of his hand, “after we check on Roach.”

“Hitched her at the inn, didn’t you?” Jaskier turned to check Yennefer. “Didn’t he?”

She sighed and laid a steady hand upon his shoulder. Making sure she caught his eye, she carefully, clearly replied, making sure he caught every word without mistake, “He’s not referring to his horse. He’s talking about your wolf.”

Jaskier half-laughed. “You’re joking.” Turned to find Geralt. Realized she wasn’t. “Now, you wait just one second!” he called after him, anxiously scrabbling past the edge of the town and back into the forest after a swiftly departing Geralt. “Listen, I _told_ you - the wolf’s name is ‘Geralt’! Now, look, I’m sorry that bothers you, but quite honestly that’s really not my problem and I would greatly prefer it if you didn’t go bustling off on some personal vendetta against—”

Geralt was on him between blinks of the eye, Jaskier’s terrified yelp stopped short only by the equally sudden snatch of his clothes in Geralt’s fist. “If you’re so damn certain of that, then you’ll have no objections to me investigating the matter myself. But you know what I think?” He released Jaskier with a small shove. “I think you _know_ something’s not quite right. The name ‘Roach’ sounds more familiar than you’d like, but you prefer to tell yourself it’s wrong because the name ‘Geralt’ resonates too closely. You’re _afraid_ to have the truth revealed, because it’s far easier to swallow a convenient lie than go searching for answers you can’t grasp.”

By the end of Geralt’s tirde, Jaskier’s expression pursed into a sour glare, and his fists balled at his sides. Yennefer raised her hand to offer some mild comfort, but before she could touch him he was barking right back at Geralt. “Fine, then,” he offered with a curt gesture into the forest. “You’re wrong, but be my guest. Go and see for yourself.”

Geralt scowled at him. Briefly, his eyes met Yennefer’s, and he could only stomach an ounce of their imploring caution before he turned and continued tromping through the woods. She sighed, then finished reaching for Jaskier’s shoulder. “Jaskier—”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, anxiously jerking out from under her hand and continuing after Geralt. “He’s wrong. I know he is.”

But he was starting to sound desperate, more convincing himself than anyone else, and Yennefer braced herself for what could only be a tumultuous evening for their little entourage.

Only a short while passed before they reached the clearing shoddily stowing Jaskier’s wolf away from view, but it felt like an eternity. They exchanged no further words, each of them consumed with their own degrees of curious dread. When the shamble of fallen brush and bramble poked into view, they shared a collective breath, sharing in equal amounts relief and apprehension. His heavy boots crunching upon thin twigs and dead leaves, Geralt approached the place where the camouflage fell in the vague form of the wolf’s giant snout, then turned to Jaskier in stern, quiet inquiry.

Jaskier winced. His every nerve felt on fire. That he had no idea _why_ only made it worse, churning his stomach enough that he felt sick. The pounding of his heart drowned out the night’s quieting birdsong as he warily approached his cryodoll. He tried, and failed, to still it with a swallow, then slowly reached out and slipped his trembling fingertips under the blanket of leaves and in along the synthetic fibers coating his wolf. “H-Hey there, Geralt,” he whispered, gently stroking the dormant machine with his thumb. “Sorry to disturb you.” Even his voice shook, and occasionally he had to fight against the choking dry of his throat to form his words. “See, my friends here… They’ve convinced themselves of some wild fantasy.”

Beside him, Geralt’s frustration rose. Yennefer quickly slipped into his mind. _Can’t you see how difficult this is for him?_

Geralt glared over his shoulder. _He’s stalling._ Nonetheless, he backed off, though his fists remained tightly balled and ready to react in the event Jaskier tried to pull anything.

Jaskier’s brow furrowed, and his hand clutched his wolf’s manufactured pelt. His free hand slid under his doublet to pluck a small crystal free from its hidden pocket. His eyes, their color like the sky just before a torrential storm, searched his wolf’s obscured face as if it would reveal to him some reassurance of its name, but only a deafening silence persisted. He took a deep breath, then finally lifted the shard in his palm to the small slot hidden along the wolf’s snout. It slipped easily into place, and once more brilliant, gleaming light swelled to life in each of its huge eyes. It began to shift, some of the foliage trumbling from its shoulders, but Jaskier quickly stilled it with a gentle word and the press of his hand to its body. “Stay, Geralt. Sorry to wake you, this should be real quick.”

In response to his words, or perhaps more likely to a thought passed through their unique connection, the wolf stilled its body and instead only lifted and turned its head, its glowing eyes coming to settle expectantly upon Jaskier. Obediently, it waited for instruction, maintaining an unsettling quiet for something that looked like it should have been alive.

Jaskier hesitated, then finally lowered his hands and stepped a few paces back. For the sake of his own well-being, he threw up a confident air, one hand planting upon his hip while the other gestured flippantly to his black-clad companion. “My friend here _insists_ your name isn’t ‘Geralt.’ Unfortunately, you can’t speak, and you respond to commands through my bracer - _not_ by name. Leaves us rather limited on ways to prove him wrong, doesn’t it? But perhaps there’s some other way we can put his mind at ease?”

The wolf merely continued to stare at Jaskier. Beside him, Geralt grew impatient, and stepped into the wolf’s view. “Doesn’t respond by name, huh?” he scoffed, then looked up at the wolf. As he met the wolf’s gaze, he felt that overwhelming sense of familiarity sweep over him once more, and he grew more confident in his conclusion. With a firm narrow of his brow, he commanded, “Lay back down, Roach.”

When nothing happened, a smug look found its way across Jaskier’s face, and he eagerly turned to face Geralt. “Hah! See? I _told_ you his name was—”

“Voice recognition protocol complete.”

Geralt drew his sword. Magic licked Yennefer’s hands. Jaskier simply whirled. They stared up at the wolf’s face, each dealing with their own onslaughts of new questions and concerns summoned with the wolf’s startling reply.

“Command not recognized,” it spoke without use of its mouth as its face slowly shifted to regard Geralt more directly. “Please issue another command, Lieutenant Geralt.”

Yennefer blinked at the revelation, letting the magic fade from her hands. “Lieutenant?”

“ _That’s_ what worries you?” Geralt mused over his shoulder, pleased by the opportunity to return her own words back at her. He turned next to Jaskier, but upon seeing his widened eyes, his tensed fingers, the strain of oncoming panic pulling at his face, he let the self-righteous words fall away from his tongue, and instead hesitantly ventured, “Jaskier?”

“Nothing to do with the name,” he insisted, but all the confident presence had evaporated from his voice, leaving him sounding hollow and fragile. “Just your voice, is all.”

Geralt and Yennefer exchanged a look. He encouraged her closer with a small nod of his head - given the circumstances, anything Geralt could say stood slim chances of actually comforting the man. She obliged of course, feeling at least partially responsible for whatever tirade awaited them. Perhaps it would have been better to let the man continue living his lie? After all, he merely _looked_ like their friend, so what did it matter to _them_ how the rest of his life played out?

But the thought alone stung, as if in some kind of existential stroke of penance for past cruelties, and the notion couldn’t be lost that this might be the universe’s way of providing a second chance.

“She recognized Geralt,” Yennefer softly replied once she’d drawn near. “Called him by name.”

“Nope,” he replied, urgently shaking his head. “Talking about herself. You must’ve misheard!”

“Don’t be unreasonable, Jaskier,” she continued, moving to lay her hands upon his shoulders. “It’s a name. It just means—”

“It’s not just a name!” he bellowed, suddenly whirling to face her. Both of them could almost see the cracks breaking across his composure as he desperately glanced between them. “It’s not just a name,” he repeated, though this time his voice crippled, and his hand shifted to mindlessly grope at his chest. “It… It’s…” He turned to gaze up at the wolf, his expression visibly haunted as he dipped into his elusive memories. “I… I _needed_ that name. And that name needed me. And it… it _hurts_ in ways I don’t…” He hesitated, then turned to Geralt. The moisture gathering in his gaze felt hot, reflecting the rage that had begun to grit his teeth and clutch his clothes. “This _has_ to be ‘Geralt,’ don’t you see? Because ‘Geralt’ is _supposed_ to be here. How can something that _isn’t here_ hurt me so deeply?”

Geralt winced. _If life could give me one blessing…_ “You don’t know what happened,” he quickly retorted, trying and failing to ignore how defensive it sounded. “You said you were lost, did you? Maybe he’s still looking for you?”

Jaskier scoffed, his voice raw with pain. “Is that what you think?” He lifted a hand to rap a finger against his temple. “Feel like hopping back in there and telling the class how long it’s been?”

Geralt’s lips pursed, and he quieted as his own chest began to tighten. In the awkward, uncomfortable silence that followed, he turned to Yennefer for guidance, but she could only offer a sympathetic shake of her head.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Jaskier spat. “I get the feeling you know full bloody well what’s likely happened.”

And just like that, Geralt’s ire flickered anew. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he barked back.

Jaskier was all too ready to throw his arms wide and turn about to regard the surrounding forest. “Jaskier? Oi, Jaskier!” The forest’s empty reply hit like daggers. “Where art thou, thy Jaskier?!” he shouted, and when still nothing answered looked back at Geralt with an expression that spat venom. “Not here, huh? And _you_ aren’t exactly haulin’ ass to sort that one, _are_ you?”

“That’s not fair,” Yennefer finally interjected, turning Jaskier by the shoulder to face her. “We’re completely different people. You can’t judge them based on us.”

“You’re right!” he a bit too chipperly replied. “And, likewise, the two of _you_ have no ground to stand on telling me my Geralt is _surely_ looking for me!” His whole manner soured. With a quick gesture upon his brace, the light from Roach’s eyes faded, and her head lowered back down to lay between her paws. “Fact is, one of these two scenarios is true: either the person I apparently can’t sever myself from hasn’t a single inclination in the world to try and find me, _or_ …”

He trailed off. Through their steadily held gaze, he knew Geralt understood what hadn’t been said. Leaving it at that, he scoffed, then moodily stalked off towards the clearing’s edge, eager to lose himself among the trees.

Geralt caught Yennefer’s eyes. “Well _that_ went swimmingly,” he muttered. It earned him a sharp look before she hastily turned to hurry off after their troubled guest, if for no reason other than to make sure he made it safely back to the inn. In that, Geralt found himself in a rare moment of solitude, something that seemed to grow scarcer by the day. He needed no more proof of that than the simple fact that even as he found himself alone, his thoughts couldn’t abandon the notions that had been proposed. He turned to contemplate the sleeping wolf, brow pinched with a concern he couldn’t shake. “He’s not dead,” he grumbled, when the words escaped him he realized the unsettling obscurity of just which “he” he meant. A worry he thought he’d buried for years had apparently done nothing but take root and blossom into a background lie not unlike the one he’d just accused Jaskier of clinging to.

 _Nothing to be done about it now_ , he told himself, attempting to suppress the tiny question struggling to prop up in the back of his mind. As he turned from the wolf to make his way back to the inn, he found he’d only succeeded in replacing it with another.

_But, if he’s not dead… then where IS he… ?_

* * *

An alarm shrieked all around him. Lights flashed, throwing stark, distorted shadows in every direction.

He was yelling at someone. A silver-haired man dressed head-to-toe in crisply tailored black. An array of medals glittered across his shoulders, reflecting the brilliant rage of a world on fire.

They were in trouble. They had to escape. But someone was missing.

His eyes scoured the thick, billowing smoke. “Where’s Yen?!”

Even despite the world’s chaos, he caught the hesitation in the man’s gleaming eyes. Rigid, black lines crept around the sides of his face, spidering towards his eyes. “I have to go back.”

There wasn’t time. They both knew it.

A sack landed at his side. He grabbed it and pulled it close, but couldn’t tear his eyes away from his comrade.

“Take that and run!”

He grit his teeth, his hand clutching the precious cargo. “But what about—”

Another explosion. It threw him back, fresh flames lancing across the space between them. It was nothing compared to the sun ripping through his dismantled cover, searing across his flesh as the ground fell out from under him.

Thought alone summoned the ever diligent, brutally exacting wolf. As much as the sun tore at him, he spared no concern for its assault. In a matter of moments, he knew he would be safe within Roach’s clutches.

What he _didn’t_ know was what horrific visions hid beyond that orange-and-red veil, what screams drowned in its deafening roar.

“GERALT!!!”


End file.
